OAKLAND -- The normally press-shy Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums stepped out in front of the Bay Area media this week and conceded that the investigation into the assassination of journalist Chauncey Bailey by his city's police department may well be compromised.

Dellums, a beloved long time former member of Congress from the East Bay, signaled his concern by asking the state Attorney General's office to initiate its own investigation into the August 2007 homicide of the editor of the Oakland Post newspaper.

Dellums indicated that he feared Oakland police Sgt. Derwin Longmire's ties with Yusuf Bey IV, the leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery effectively tainted the department's ability to objectively investigate the high-profile case.

Currently, a janitor with the controversial bakery, Devaughndre Broussard, is the lead suspect in the assassination of Bailey. Investigators and other journalists theorize that Broussard was under orders by the Bey family to assault Bailey fearing that he was about to publish a series of investigative pieces on the controversial Oakland family and its bakery operation.

"While I respect and appreciate" the efforts of the police, Dellums said at a City Hall news conference reported by the San Francisco Chronicle in this story. "The residents of Oakland deserve to know that this investigation is being conducted with the utmost transparency, openness and integrity."