Evidence recovered during the police raid at Your Black Muslim Bakery Friday morning links members of the organization to the ambush killing of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey, authorities said.

Officials would not say what the evidence is, but sources told the Oakland Tribune that it was a shotgun seized at the bakery that was used to kill Bailey, 57, Thursday morning in downtown Oakland.

Bailey, a former Oakland Tribune reporter, was walking to the Oakland Post when he was gunned down at 14th and Alice streets. Bailey was known to be working on a story about Your Black Muslim Bakery.

During a raid of Your Black Muslim Bakery in North Oakland early Friday, where weapons were confiscated and 19 people detained, authorities also uncovered conditions so unsanitary that the Alameda County Health Department has closed down the popular bakery and cafe.

More than 200 heavily armed police raided the San Pablo Avenue bakery before dawn Friday, recovering several guns and spent ammunition possibly linked to killings, shootings, robberies and a kidnapping, authorities said. Nearly 20 people, including organization leader Yusef Bey IV, were detained in the raid, that also included homes near the bakery in the 5800 block of San Pablo Avenue.

Police also found filth and waste -- including dead rats on the roof and rat droppings in the bakery -- that they believe was leaking into drainage lines, prompting them to call in Vector Control, the city's code compliance unit, State Fish and Game and the Alameda County's District Attorney's environmental crimes unit. Fines for such violations can be up to $5,000 a day.

Police broke down doors and used stun grenades to disorient people to gain entry. No one was hurt in the raids, which began at 5 a.m.

Police also raided homes on Herzog, 60th and Aileen streets, but it was not clear what was found there.

Police said they had probable cause arrest warrants for several men with ties to the Black Muslim Bakery organization but were still trying to determine if they were among those detained. Police said some of those detained had arrest warrants from other police agencies and parolee violations.

Police would not give specific details about the cases they believe are linked to the people associated with the bakery, but did say some were committed last year and earlier this year.

Two are believed to be shooting deaths of two men last month within a few blocks of the bakery, in pre-dawn hours. One was the July 12 shooting death of Michael J. Wills Jr., 36, who had addresses in both Oakland and Fremont. He was gunned down in the 6200 block of San Pablo Avenue.

Four days earlier, Odell Roberson Jr., 31, was shot to death in the 1000 block of 60th Street. Police suspected the murders were connected because of the circumstances and similarities of weapons used.

At least one case possibly linked to the bakery involves the kidnapping several weeks ago of some women whom a ransom was demanded for before they were able to escape, sources said.

And one of the shootings possibly resulted from a love triangle, sources said. The search and probable cause warrants served Friday were signed by a judge several days ago, authorities said.

Asst. Chief Howard Jordan said the warrants were obtained so that police could seek evidence needed ``to further our investigations into these different crimes.''

He said the men named in the probable cause warrants ``are very violent individuals who need to be in custody.'' More than 200 law enforcement officers, mainly from Oakland with assistance from the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, Fremont, Hayward, Livermore and Alameda police took part in the raids.

Jordan said none of the suspected crimes involving the organization happened in those other jurisdictions but their assistance was needed because Oakland police entry teams train with them.

A news conference is planned later today.

Your Black Muslim Bakery and its affiliated businesses, which fill several storefronts along both sides of San Pablo Avenue near the Emeryville and Berkeley borders, have long been alternately praised and vilified. Police said the Nation of Islam, an umbrella organization for Muslims nationwide, is not affiliated with the bakery. ``We do not have any reason to believe that the Nation of Islam is involved in any of this activity,'' said Assistant Chief Howard Jordan.

The late Black Muslim patriarch Yusuf Bey founded the bakery in 1968, building his organization on ideals of black empowerment, respect and self-reliance. For many years, he was highly regarded among many sectors of the community as a formidable businessman, trying to better the lives of young African-American men. His group grew beyond the bakery, eventually including a security company, dry cleaning stores, a school and a health and beauty store, becoming the most visible Black Muslim organization in the Bay Area.

Then a year before his death from cancer in 2003, the man who had once been seen as an upstanding role model for young black men was charged with 27 counts in the alleged rapes of four girls under the age of 14. He was awaiting trial on one of those charges when he died.

Through all this, he still had staunch supporters. But critics cited rumors of racism and violence related to Bey, his organization and his ``family'' of young black men.

And since the elder Bey's death, some say the group has been deteriorating into a little more than a street gang suffering from an internal power struggle. Two heirs to Bey's leadership have been killed. The badly decomposed body of Waajid Aliawaad Bey, 51, was found in a shallow grave in the Oakland hills in 2004. He was the CEO of the bakery at the time.

Then Yusuf Bey's son Antar Bey, 23, was shot to death in 2005 in failed carjacking attempt at a gas station on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. And Bey's third successor, Yusuf Bey IV, 23 _ detained in Friday morning's raids _ has had numerous previous contacts with law enforcement. In a pending case, he is accused of leading a 2005 vandalism attack on two liquor stores in West Oakland. According to the charges, eyewitnesses identified Bey and others after viewing a security camera videotape that showed a group of men in black suits and bow ties smashing liquor cases and bottles of booze.

Police were told by store owners and employees that the vandals chastised clerks for selling alcohol to African Americans, which they said is against the tenets of their Muslim faith.

In addition, Bey IV was arrested in 2006 on assault charges in San Francisco after allegedly trying to run down three security guards with his car outside a nightclub. He has also missed several court dates.

Some say there is still good in the Muslim group, but that positive aspects of the elder Bey's legacy might be eclipsed by this current atmosphere of crime and violence.