Blaming the recession and decreased tax receipts, residents of Oakland have hired their own police force. The Oakland Police Department has lost more than 200 police officers.
Overall, robberies in Oakland are up 24 percent over the past year, with armed robberies up 45 percent. Since the recession dried up local tax revenues, the Oakland Police Department has been hamstrung by the loss of more than 200 officers and can't respond to all the calls it receives for help.
The solution has been to pay $20 a month for a private police department. Because you can't collect more taxes - but you can collect the money privately. Because that's okay.
Lower Rockridge, a leafy, upscale community in North Oakland, is one neighborhood that has brought in private security. The streets are lined with small, Craftsman-style bungalows suitable for young families — like that of attorney Dakin Ferris.
So after the carpool robbery, residents in two different sections of the neighborhood used a crowdfunding website to raise tens of thousands of dollars. They're using the funds to hire private security patrols on a four-month trial period.
More than 600 households pay $20 a month for unarmed patrols in clearly marked cars to run 12 hours a day, Monday through Saturday.
Lower Rockridge is just one of several Oakland neighborhoods where residents have either hired private security patrols or are actively debating taking that step. In some neighborhoods, the patrols are armed.
And, in a completely unsurprising turn of events, less wealthy residents are left out:
But the private patrols are not universally popular. And in a less upscale area of Lower Rockridge, not everyone is on board, says resident Nicole Aruda.
"A lot has been made that this crowdfunding campaign was democracy in action. I don't believe it," Aruda says.
Aruda, like Ferris, is an attorney, a parent of two and a neighborhood activist. She says the organizers of the crowdfunding efforts bypassed the objections of their neighbors.
"And the rest of us, who have not signed up with this company, there's no accountability for us," she says. "If there are problems with patrols in the neighborhood, we have no one to go to because we're not contractees. The security company has no responsibility to us. There's no transparency."
Aruda says the online debate left out hundreds, if not thousands, of neighbors who were not part of the discussion.
"It's important to get outside your own echo chamber and really listen to people of differing opinions," she says. "That hasn't happened here."
Who could have predicted? Taxes are bad, so real police officers have to be laid off. Worried about increasing crime, large fees are collected and selective neighborhoods do an end-around around the problem, leaving less well-off residents in the lurch. This is no different than any other privatization schemes dreamed up by ALEC and the Koch brothers. It is the opposite of democracy, yet ironically touted as democracy in action by those engaging. Worst of all, the police and local politicians are on board, undermining their own existence.
As for the police, Oakland Police Department spokeswoman Johnna Watson says they appreciate the help.
"We welcome the extra set of eyes and ears," she says. "Any help that we can receive to reduce crime in our city is good for all of us."
Local politicians are supportive, too. But Dan Kalb, the Oakland city councilman who represents the Lower Rockridge neighborhood, says he doesn't want anyone to lose faith in the Oakland Police Department.
Today the police are barely accountable to the citizens they serve. This removes any thin veneer of accountability that may ever have existed. And what about Sundays, is that going to be crime spree free for all? Or are they counting on criminals to be law abiding because it's Sunday?