Aug. 17, 2024 - James “Big Jim” Clark was stirring up scrambled eggs in the kitchen of Station 3 when the call came in.
Dispatch was reporting a sideshow at the intersection of International and Fruitvale, near Wendy’s. Gunshots had been heard, and a sizable crowd had gathered, putting them in imminent danger. “Jeez,” Big Jim thought, looking at the wall clock. “It’s only 1:15 in the afternoon.”
He turned off the flame. After suiting up, he gathered his gear and headed toward the door, glancing ruefully at the eggs that would go uneaten.
Big Jim knew he would have his hands full. Sideshows were hard to control under ordinary circumstances, but the situation in the Oakland Police Department was hardly ordinary. Mayor Regina Jackson had announced earlier that she was immediately suspending most funding for the department, under emergency powers granted her by the City Council and Police Commission. Between cops that were fired and others who quit, 678 officers were gone from OPD in the space of a week, leaving only one: Big Jim Clark.
Himself the son of an OPD officer, Big Jim had always wanted to be a cop. He’d idolized his Dad, Sgt. Johnny. The pair had gone hunting together since Big Jim was a nine-year old kid. When Sgt. Johnny was murdered while responding to a domestic dispute, Big Jim, then 16, was devastated. It had taken years of counseling to get his life back together. But he graduated with high marks from Police Academy in August, 2008, and when his Commanding Officer pinned the OPD badge onto his lapel, Big Jim’s eyes teared up, as he thought of his Dad.
Now he was the last cop in Oakland. The city’s crime rate was through the roof: over 300 murders this year alone, and it was only August. Robberies, carjackings, home invasions, muggings, assaults, looting, arson, sexual assault—just about every known crime was occurring at record levels. And yet the public didn’t seem overly concerned. A few people wrote angry letters to the editors of local newspapers, and nextdoor.com occasionally erupted into brawls in which people who complained about crime were outshouted by others who called them racists; but by and large, the citizens were content to make money, play video games, hang out on Tik Tok, and drink in the bars after work. Mayor Jackson seemed unphased by what was occurring in her city. “Revolutions always take a little time to settle down,” she was fond of saying. If pressed by reporters to address the crime rate, Mayor Jackson responded that the interests of social justice outweighed all other concerns.
Big Jim sighed as he drove his patrol car down International. Suddenly there was a loud noise – Crack! – and the windshield burst into a spidery vein of jagged lines. Another rock, tossed his way by unseen hands. He was used to that. Still, it always shook him up. Why did people hate him? He was just trying to help them.
He heard the sound of squealing tires and people screaming and cheering before he saw the actual sideshow, a block away. There must have been 300, 400 spectators, mostly young; many held up their iPhones, shooting videos. They were formed into a huge circle, while in the center, a yellow car (a Mustang, from the looks of it) was doing donuts. Someone was launching rockets which exploded overhead in showers of red and gold sparks. Then Big Jim heard the concussive Boom! of gunfire: Colt .38, he figured. He cruised to a stop, double-parked on International. Before exiting the vehicle, he made sure his sidearm was in place. He pressed a button on his shoulder unit and informed Dispatch he was about to enter the crime scene. But he knew it was a joke: If he got into trouble, which was likely, there were no other cops to help him. Not when he was the last cop in Oakland.
Steve Heimoff