Minutes earlier, Lancaster was allegedly beaten by a gang of teenage boys, and the half-dozen or so neighbors who witnessed the crime were in a frenzy, pointing up and down the street, comparing accounts. Lancaster, his head pillowed on a bloody ball of plastic bags, groaned and coughed as Officer Bacon reassured him and waited for an ambulance.

“That’s your name?” one of the eyewitnesses asked Officer Bacon, staring at his nametag.

“Bet you’ll never forget a cop named Bacon,” he said.

Meanwhile, a mob of 40-60 teenagers, mostly boys, drifted up the street, shouting and cursing. Few looked older than 15 or 16. A caravan of tricked-out cars rolled alongside them, and their booming subwoofers provided a deafening soundtrack for the increasingly chaotic scene. Bacon, still the only officer there, watched the mob swell. A late-model Buick passed, its chrome-plated wheels glimmering, and when Bacon made eye contact with the driver he floored the accelerator and disappeared down Foothill, daring Bacon to follow.

And both officer and driver knew there wasn’t a chance he would. Dogwatch patrol officers--who work the graveyard shift like Bacon-- barely have enough time to respond to all their calls, let alone provide traffic enforcement. They say Oakland needs more cops, and the residents who witnessed Lancaster’s beating agreed.

“Well, don’t forget to vote this November,” Officer Bacon told the shaken-up crowd, making a plug for Measure Y, the Oakland ballot initiative that would raise parcel and parking taxes to hire more police and expand crime prevention programs.

Along the streets of Oakland’s high-crime areas, garish orange-and-purple “Yes for Safe Neighborhoods- Yes on Measure Y” signs are now ubiquitous, but support for it is divided between those who want more cops on the street and others who would like to see more programs.

“We need to feel more secure in our neighborhoods, and our kids need to have more activities so they’ll stay out of trouble,” said East Oakland resident Njeri Moore, a patient services supervisor at the Eastmont Wellness Center.

Also called The Violence Prevention and Public Safety Act of 2004, Measure Y would levy an $88 parcel tax on single-family homes, a $60 tax on rental units, and a $45 tax on commercial properties equivalent to a residence Oakland’s commercial parking tax would be rasied 8.5 percent.

With a projected revenue increase of nearly $20 million, Measure Y promises to hire 63 new police officers and place a special emphasis on neighborhood policing, as well as increase violence prevention services like after-school programs for at-risk youth and job training programs for parolees. The plan stipulates that 40 percent of the increased funds must be spent on these social programs.

“I’m supporting Measure Y because I get 63 more officers, not for the social programs,” said councilmember Larry Reid, who represents East Oakland’s District 7. Reid listed a host of existing social programs in his district, and said that ultimately, it’s up to individuals to change their criminal ways. So in the meantime, he wants more cops.

“I’m tired of people making excuses for the insanity taking place on my streets,” Reid said.

But councilmember Desley Brooks, who represents District 6 in East Oakland, isn’t sold on Measure Y. “The city council has passed measure after measure to make it look like we’re tough on crime, but in the end, it’s business as usual,” said Brooks, the only councilmember opposed to the initiative.

“It’s badly drafted, ill-conceived, and it’ll cost a lot of people money,” said Brooks, who also cited the lack of statistical research showing that a personnel increase would lead to a more effective police department.

The initiative also promises to eliminate Oakland’s current cost-cutting practice of rotating fire station closures, and establishes safeguards like an 11-person oversight committee to ensure proper implementation, as well as an annual independent audit of expenditures.

Oakland currently has about 180 police officers per 100,000 residents, even fewer than U.S. cities with larger populations and lower homicide totals. For example, while Oakland had 109 homicides in 2003 and Milwaukee had 106, Milwaukee has 286 police per 100,000 residents, and nearly 200,000 more people. San Francisco had 69 homicides in 2003 and a force of 292 officers per 100,000 residents.
Opposition to Measure Y has created some unusual alliances in the No on Y front. It includes anti-tax groups and organizations like the Alameda County Green Party, Critical Resistance, and the Bay Area Police Watch.

“There is no relation to number of police per capita and crime rates,” said former Oakland city councilmember and mayoral candidate Wilson Riles, now president of the Oakland Community Action Network, an umbrella group that opposes increasing the size of the city’s police force.

For example, despite having a population slightly larger than Oakland’s, Fresno has only 160 police officers per 100,000 residents, and registered just 36 homicides in 2003.

Riles said Oakland’s “dysfunctional” police department is widely mistrusted in Oakland’s most troubled communities. “The record of the police department in those high-crime areas is one of harassment and racial profiling,” he said.

The Committee for No on Measure Y simply doesn’t trust the city to actually hire more police with the revenue.

“I’m pro-police and pro-fire, but there’s no guarantee there will be more police,” said co-chair Steve Edrington, who’s also Executive Director and lobbyist for the Rental Housing Association for Northern Alameda County, a trade group that represents Alameda County landlords, who would see their parcel taxes go up.

“The proposal talks about 63 police, but there’s no word ‘additional’ in there,” Edrington said.

Visitors to the committee’s website will hear Pink Floyd’s “Money” playing in the background, as well as the sound of a flushing toilet, a none-too-subtle swipe at Oakland’s financial management record.
Previous tax-raising anti-crime initiatives in Oakland have failed to attain the two-thirds majority needed to pass. Last March, a similar proposal called Measure R was narrowly defeated, but that initiative sought to earmark a greater percentage of tax revenue for social programs than for more police.

“I think they also need to police the police,” said East Oakland resident Tim Lee, 42, who drives a garbage truck for Alameda County. Lee said he’s been unduly harassed by Oakland police officers in the past, but now that he’s a father of two, he plans to vote yes on Measure Y.

“I understand what police officers have to go through,” Lee said.

So do beating victim Lancaster’s neighbors. As they watched paramedics load him into the ambulance bound for Highland Hospital, a crowded 1970s-style Winnebago barreled past along Foothill Boulevard at over 60 miles an hour, like some sort of runaway freight car. They gasped as the driver slammed on his brakes to narrowly avert crushing another car.

Bacon just shook his head in disbelief. Waiting for backup to arrive, he continued taking eyewitness statements for suspects he’d probably never have time to look for.