He's Neutral | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

Dan Stevenson: You know, we have had muggings in this neighborhood. You know we've had muggings and you know, aggressive behavior, aggravated assaults and
all kinds of things over the years here. You know, so it is an issue for lots of people.
There is maybe like five or six years ago, you know, the community group gave everybody
whistles in case somebody, especially women or something were accosted or somebody was
following them. They just had to blow their whistle and alert other people that something was up, you know.
Phoebe Judge: This is Dan Stevenson. He and his wife, Lu, have lived in Oakland, California, for 40 years.
They live in a two-story purple Victorian in a neighborhood called Eastlake. He says the crime has been an issue there, for as long as he can remember.
But when you live in a city long enough, you just learn to deal with it. Dan Stevenson: You know, a couple of times, some guys tried to get my wallet and just
city stuff that you know, once you live in the city long enough, you got to at least
be accosted a couple of times or you are not there. Once you know everybody's position, you know as you go outside you know who they are and
where they are and what they do, there was no hustle. Phoebe Judge: So once you knew that the drug dealer was a drug dealer, you just went about
your business and he did his business and you did yours? Dan Stevenson: That's correct.
Yeah. Phoebe Judge: And you just stayed out of each other's way? Dan Stevenson: Right, I mean I wouldn't call the police.
Phoebe Judge: Why? Dan Stevenson: [Laughs.] Well, first of all, I don't trust the police.
I probably trust a drug dealer more than I trust a cop. So, that's part of it. Part of it has to do with the times I have called the police, they don't seem to be able
to just come in and do it in a commonsensical way. They have to come in like an army or something over somebody selling drugs.
I don't really care about that. Phoebe Judge: It's one thing not to call the cops when you suspected the guy down the block
might be selling drugs. But it's another thing when there is a man right outside your bedroom window at 3:00
am. This is what happened to Dan and Lu about five years ago. Dan Stevenson: My wife was here and we went to bed.
About 3:00 a.m. she nudges me and says, “There is somebody on the deck.” Phoebe Judge: Dan says he actually built a special deck to keep random people from wandering
up there. There are no stairs, you have to climb partly up a tree and then, lift yourself up over
the railing. Dan Stevenson: So, I get up and I look out. Sure enough, there is a guy on the deck. and so I yelled through the door and tell him
to get off the fuckin' deck and he kind of is totally gone. I mean the exchange we had was like, this guy was strung out on something, big time.
And he was just out to lunch. So, my wife wanted me to call the police, but I thought, if I call the police, they
are gonna come. This guy is just you know, screwed up, it's not a... He is of no danger that I could see, he didn't have any weapons or anything, he is just out
of it. So, we started to talk. Phoebe Judge: It took Dan 45 minutes but he talked the guy down.
Nobody got hurt. If he had gone the official route, with the cops, he says it would have been a real pain.
Dan Stevenson: And then, I would have been up for another two hours, you know, filling
out reports with them. By — within 45 minutes, I was back asleep and it was all good.
Phoebe Judge: But even this guy, the most patient, live and let live guy in the neighborhood,
eventually hit his limit. And when he got fed up, he did something desperate. Something that makes absolutely no sense to anyone.
Maybe least of all to Dan himself. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. [Music.] What wound up pushing Dan over the edge wasn't drug dealers or sex workers, it was garbage,
a gigantic pile of garbage. The city put in a traffic diverter across the street from their house.
It's about 500ft from their front door. Dan Stevenson: A concrete divide with a space in the middle, with trees and nobody took
care of it. Phoebe Judge: Nobody took care of it and so, it became a de facto garbage dump.
Dan Stevenson: People that were removing decided that would be a place to move everything they
didn't want to take with them. So, the stack would be like six, eight feet high sometimes with dressers, mattresses and
garbage and bags of crap and clothing. I mean just intense. And it's been a big problem, with Oakland for years, all over the place.
You know, somebody will dump whatever they have in your front yard if you are not careful.
Phoebe Judge: Dan says he watched trucks pull up at night and load mountains of furniture
garbage. And he called the city and called and called and called. So, you would wake up in the morning sometimes like eight feet, to like an eight-foot pile
of crap? Dan Stevenson: Yeah. Yeah. And if the City didn't come fast enough, it could get higher because once you have — it's
like a magnet. Once you got a stack of stuff other people think, ‘Oh there is an idea,’ and they
keep stacking it, you know. Phoebe Judge: So, what did you decide to do about it?
Dan Stevenson: Well, that was — that is a good question. Lu and I discussed this for quite some time and we came up with the idea of a Buddha,
to put a Buddha there. Phoebe Judge: Are you Buddhists? Dan Stevenson: No, we have nothing to do with Buddhism at all.
Phoebe Judge: But you figured if there is one thing that might help here, it's Buddha.
Dan Stevenson: Well, yeah. Because he’s neutral. I mean if we threw Christ up there, he is controversial.
Everybody has got a deal about him. But Buddha, nobody seems to be that perturbed in general about a Buddha.
[Music.] Phoebe Judge: So, Dan and Lu made up their minds and it turns out they had a lot of options.
Dan Stevenson: You know, we look at the different ones and she picked up one that she liked
the face because you know they come out of a concrete cast. So, some of them look more mellow than others.
Phoebe Judge: Lu went off to ACE Hardware and picked one out. Dan Stevenson: Which, you know, she brought home and I like him, you know, he looked cool
to me. And then he sat in the basement for about three or four months because I couldn't figure
out a way to put him over there without having him stolen or ruined, and those things would
have really pissed me off. So finally, I came up with a plan and I drilled into him and put, epoxied rebar into his body.
And I fixed the Buddha, so he will be looking at our house. In fact, looking through the window where I could look at him.
So, when I get up in the morning and have my coffee, I can look over and see how he
is doing? Phoebe Judge: Wait, are you allowed to do this? It feels like this breaking some sort of city code.
Dan Stevenson: [Laughs.] Allowed, that's another thing. It's best not to ask before you do things, because it's always, no.
You know, you kind of just do it and see what happens. Phoebe Judge: Dan didn't tell his neighbors about his plan.
He dragged some extension cord from his house and used a drill to affix the Buddha to a
slab of concrete. And that was it. Dan Stevenson: And there he was, it was like a surprise.
And he just sat there. Phoebe Judge: How long before something happened? Dan Stevenson: It was probably about maybe four months or something of him just sitting
there being concrete. But one morning, I wake up and look over and Buddha is white.
Someone has come and painted him a soft white. Phoebe Judge: This was, someone had kind of carefully done this on purpose.
Dan Stevenson: Oh very carefully, I mean there is no like paint around him or any … I mean
strictly whoever did it took care in painting. and you know, I thought that's interesting.
And then, after that you know, you will have an orange and pretty soon two oranges and
maybe a pear. Phoebe Judge: Just as mysteriously, as Dan had installed this statue, people began leaving
little gifts, oranges or coins. One day, he said he came back home from work and there was a big sack of pears.
And he had no idea where they were coming from or what they represented. Dan Stevenson: I assume now, because of what has happened, that the Vietnamese community
decided that he needs to be cared for and from there it just grew to where it is today,
which is a total shrine. Phoebe Judge: Yeah, will you describe what the Buddha looks like right now?
Dan Stevenson: Well, the Buddha now, is like upgraded considerably. I mean he is gold now and his eyes are painted in and he just...
You know, he's got gold-draped clothing and he is just really top-drawer cool-looking
Buddha. I mean he's come a long way, in terms of his dress. Now, he sits on a kind of a rock pedestal kind of thing that's I don’t know granite
or something. And then, he is ... He has a house that you could probably live in if you were a single
person and small. Phoebe Judge: The house is now around Buddha. So, Buddha is protected from the rain and such?
Dan Stevenson: Oh yeah. And so, if you wanted to pray there, which they do constantly, you just slip inside the
little building and you kneel down and Buddha is there and he's got other friends of Buddhas,
you know and there is a big Kuan Yin outside, which is the goddess of mercy. Phoebe Judge: But what do you mean when they come to pray?
Who is coming there? Do people come there often? Dan Stevenson: Every morning at 7:00 a.m., they pray and they have this little clicker
thing, it's like a little drum. It goes claak claak- claak -claak -claak. [Singing in a foreign language.]
Dan Stevenson: And sometimes, they will set up tables and have a feast, you know.
And they put out food and all these people come and they pray and they go through that,
and they eat and they have a kind of a community. Phoebe Judge: Do you ever go and introduce yourself?
Dan Stevenson: Oh, they know who I am. Phoebe Judge: So, they know that you are the man who brought the Buddha from ACE Hardware
in 2009. Dan Stevenson: And there lies the problem. [Laughs.]. Yes, because at every feast they bring over a stack of food and fruit and wine and a bottle
of whiskey one time. I mean, it's just… Phoebe Judge: To say thank you. Dan Stevenson: Presents for … Yes.
Yeah and I keep telling them, thanks a lot but there is only like Lu and we can't eat
all of this stuff and… Phoebe Judge: But these aren't like your neighbors bringing over food.
These are people who are coming to visit the Buddha from other neighborhoods and appreciating
what you started. Dan Stevenson: Yes and they all bow and none of them speak English, So, I bow and we all
bow [Laughing.] It's embarrassing, kind of, for me because I don't even know what they are thinking,
you know. But I keep trying to tell them that it's their Buddha and good luck with him and adios.
But they don't kind of go for that, you know. Phoebe Judge: How many people are coming?
How many people are coming on a daily basis would you say to see the Buddha? Dan Stevenson: Oh, at least 70.
Phoebe Judge: A day? Dan Stevenson: A day, yeah. And then, there is also the [laughs] there is also the tourists thing.
They’ll knock on my door and they are from Minneapolis and somebody on Facebook posted
something [laughs] so you know, they want to take my picture with them in front of the
Buddha. It's just for me you know, as cynical as I am, this is like what is happening?
Phoebe Judge: Remember, Dan and Lu put the Buddha up as a sort of desperate shot in the
dark, a truly random attempt to curtail dumping and crime and he accidentally created a sacred
place for members of Oakland's Vietnamese Buddhist community. But that's not the end of the story.
Dan Stevenson: Oh, the crime has pretty much disappeared, in a sense. The drug dealing has definitely gone and so, has the prostitution.
I mean there is none, zero. Within, you know quite a distance from our area now.
But it's a slow process that I didn't really notice it happening and didn't even think
of it in those terms until I read it in the paper. Phoebe Judge: In September, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle did a story on
Dan and the Buddha and asked the Oakland Police Department for the updated crime statistics
for the neighborhood. Here is what he wrote. ''Since 2012, when worshippers began showing up for daily prayers, overall year to date
crime has dropped by 82%.'' I mean we all have some respect for religious symbols, whether it's the religion that we
ascribe to, whether we ascribe to a religion at all. I mean there is something rather sacred about things like this.
Dan Stevenson: Well, I agree, and I don't know if it's superstition or whether Buddha
says, ‘don't fuck with this’ or what, I have no idea. But it works. [Laughs.] So, you are right, I think people do have a feeling of either respect or fear, I don't
know. Phoebe Judge: I guess it doesn't matter, crime is down 82%. Dan Stevenson: I guess it doesn't.
[Laughs.] [Singing in a foreign language.] Phoebe Judge: Criminal is produced by Lauren Spohrer, Eric Mennel and me.
Special thanks to Alex Blair for her help with recordings. Julienne Alexander does our episode art.
You can find out more about the show at thisiscriminal.com. And you can check out the other Radiotopia shows at radiotopia.fm.
Like Strangers, hosted by Lea Thau. Her latest episode deals with crime and mental illness, focusing on a father and son.
Speaker: I call my wife, I go, ''Nina, Matthew killed somebody.'' She goes, ''Oh my god, Steve.
Oh my god Steve. Oh my god, Steve, oh my god.'' I go, ''Babe, just hold on. I will be there in a minute.''
I get home, I gave her the newspaper, she is just in total shock. Phoebe Judge: That's the latest episode of Strangers.
It's really great — you should go listen. Radiotopia from PRX is made possible with support from the Knight Foundation and MailChimp,
celebrating creativity, chaos, and teamwork. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Jingle: Radiotopia from PRX.

In September of 2014, Oakland resident, Dan Stevenson, discovered an unconventional way to decrease crime in his neighborhood. He installed a Buddha statue in the East Lake village during that time, drug dealing, littering and graffiti dropped dramatically. Dan explains this phenomenon on the latest episode of the Criminal Podcast.

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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Episode transcripts are posted on our website https://thisiscriminal.com/.

Episode 15 originally published 1/30/15 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-15-hes-neutral

Brief Summary

A Buddha statue in Oakland unexpectedly reduced local crime by 82% and fostered community spirit.

Key points

The Buddha's Unexpected Impact. Dan and Lu's decision to place a Buddha statue led to a significant drop in local crime.

Episode highlights

The Buddha's Unexpected ImpactDan and Lu's decision to place a Buddha statue led to a significant drop in local crime.“Since 2012, when worshippers began showing up for daily prayers, overall crime has dropped by 82%.”13:24Oct 28, 2022

Episode quotes

I probably trust a drug dealer more than I trust a cop.

Dan Stevenson expresses his distrust of the police.

1:30WatchOct 28, 2022

Tension

40/ 100Low tension

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