An Oakland native paroled from murder sentence with a new attitude and message for youth. Just 18 months later, he was killed in targeted shooting

OAKLAND — Lavell Stewart Jr. was living up to the promise he made to himself after three decades in state prison.

Paroled in 2022, he vowed to help East Bay children so they wouldn’t follow the path that landed him behind bars at the age of 24, convicted of murdering the son of a well-known and controversial Oakland figure.

He espoused positivity on social media and worked with troubled Richmond youth, hoping to be someone “they could talk to,” he said in a 2023 interview.

But his newfound journey was cut short after 18 months outside prison walls.

Stewart was shot dead on May 18 in West Oakland near 14th and Campbell streets by a still-unidentified gunman. Police continue to investigate the case but say they have few leads, no arrests and no clear motive beyond indications that Stewart was intentionally targeted by his killer in an area he was known to frequent.

Stewart, 53, spent nearly 30 years behind bars before his untimely death. He was convicted in 1996 of murdering 21-year-old Akbar Bey — the son of Your Black Muslim Bakery founder Yusuf Bey — and sentenced to 60 years to life in prison. At the time, the bakery was an Oakland institution and its founder was a man of political and spiritual influence. His empire would crumble over the next decade.

Akbar Bey was shot and killed in front of Omni Club on Shattuck Avenue in Oakland, on Sept. 1, 1994. Police alleged that Stewart was angry over losing $1,200 worth of marijuana to a thief, and either blamed Bey or one of the three to four men he was chatting with. He angrily confronted the group with a friend nicknamed “Fat Lester,” then shot Bey twice in the head and twice in the chest when Bey denied stealing the pot and told Stewart to get lost.

Police arrested Stewart the next day. From jail, he allegedly attempted to intimidate a woman who’d witnessed the shooting by calling her and saying, “this is not a threat, but…when you go to court, take the Fifth.” His trial attorney, Gene Peretti, argued the killing was self-defense, based on Stewart’s claim that Bey told a friend to, “pop this motherf—-r, man,” referring to Stewart, court records show.

Before his trial, Akbar Bey’s mother visited Stewart in jail and “elicited potentially incriminating statements from him” that she later shared with an Oakland homicide investigator, Peretti wrote in a legal filing. Stewart’s conviction mostly hinged on the fact that multiple people saw the shooting and were able to identify him.

Stewart maintained his innocence for years. In one prison letter, he told a judge he was convicted by “a jury that could not relate to urban life as it is known to me” and that one of his lawyers had been “intimidated from the start by the victim’s family.”

His sentence was upheld on appeal, but changes in the way the state prison system calculates parole eligibility dates moved up Stewart’s chance for freedom. He was granted parole and released from prison in October 2022.

After his release, Stewart no longer tried to blame Bey or duck any responsibility. In a September 2023 podcast interview, he spoke frankly about his chaotic upbringing, recalling that he learned from his mother how to cook, package and sell cocaine. His murder conviction, he said, resulted from a “morally wrong” and “quick temper decision” brought about by his mentality that letting someone steal from him would open him up to further abuse or disrespect.

“I didn’t have the right to do that, but I chose to, with this irrational understanding that if you take something from me…my only means of handling what I’m supposed to do is to hurt you,” Stewart said.

In the nearly 30 years between his arrest and release, Oakland had undergone serious changes, as had the family of Stewart’s victim.

Yusuf Bey, the founder of Your Black Muslim Bakery and Akbar’s father, died in 2004, while facing trial for alleged rampant sexual abuse of girls at the bakery he owned and managed. Three years later, his son, Yusuf Bey IV, ordered the assassination of Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other killings. Bey IV was later tried, convicted and sentenced to life without parole. As it turned out, Stewart’s attorney — Peretti — served as Bey IV’s trial lawyer, after the previous attorney allegedly smuggled a hit list from jail at Bey IV’s behest, court records show.

Bailey’s prolific work as an Oakland journalist included authoring Akbar Bey’s obituary in September 1994 for the Oakland Tribune. The story described Akbar Bey as a “writer, composer and rap producer” who was using music to promote peace in the community. Bailey quoted family members saying that Akbar Bey wasn’t involved in drugs, as many had assumed based on the nature of Stewart’s motive.

Once released from prison, Stewart worked as a mentor at Richmond’s Lincoln Elementary School. He was promoting nonviolence and his deeper understanding of the root causes behind gun violence, linking his own childhood trauma to the shooting that led him behind bars.

Stewart admitted he was sometimes at a loss of words after hearing from kids whose experiences were just as bad as his, or worse.

“I’m seeing the reflection of myself in them,” he said in the 2023 interview, later adding, “There’s things that they’ve seen in their life that no youngster that age should be subjected to, but unfortunately they are…I’m doing more listening than talking.”