He’s Still Neutral | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

Hi, it's Phoebe. Today we're bringing you an update on one of our most popular episodes.
It's also one of our favorites. We released this episode in the very early days of making the show.
Back when we recorded everything inside a closet. I'd be in there in the dark with a
blanket over my head trying to balance a script and a light and a microphone. And so the show sounds a little
different than it does now. Here it is, episode 15, he's neutral. You know, we've 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's 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 and then they just have to blow their
whistle and alert other people that something was up, you know. This is Dan Stevenson. He and his wife Lou have
lived in Oakland, California for 40 years. They live in a two-story purple Victorian in a neighborhood called East
Lake. He says that crime's 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. You know, a couple of times some guys tried to get my wallet and just city stuff
that that, you know, once you live in the city long enough, you got at least be accosted a couple of times or you're
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, it's no there was no hassle. So once you
knew that 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. That's correct. Yeah. And you just stayed out of each other's way. Right. I
mean, I wouldn't um like I wouldn't call the police. Why? Well, well, first first of all, I don't
trust the police. I'd probably trust a drug dealer more than I'd trust a cop. So, that's part of it.
Part of it has to do with um the times I have called the police, they just don't seem to be able to come in in
do it in a a common-sensical way. They They have to come in like like an army or something over
somebody's selling drugs or what I I don't really care about that. It's one thing not to call the cops if you
suspect a guy down the block might be selling drugs, but it's another thing when there's a man right outside your
bedroom window at 3:00 a.m. This is what happened to Dan and Lou about 5 years ago. My wife was here and
we we went to bed. About 3:00 a.m. she nudges me and says there's somebody on the deck.
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. So, I get up and I look out and
sure enough there's a guy on the deck. And so, I yell through the door and tell him to get off the
the [ __ ] deck and and he kind of is totally gone. I mean, the 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're going to come this guy's just, you know,
screwed up. It's not he's of no danger that I could see. He didn't have any weapons or anything.
He's just out of it. So, we started to talk. It took Dan 45 minutes, but he talked the guy down.
Nobody got hurt. If he'd gone the official route with the cops, he says it would have been a real pain.
And then I'd have been up for another 2 hours, you know, filling out reports with them.
I by you know, within 45 minutes I was back asleep and it was all good. But even this guy, the most patient, live
and let live guy in the neighborhood, 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. 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 500 feet from their front door. A concrete divide with a space in the middle with trees and
and nobody took care of it. Nobody took care of it and so it became a de facto garbage dump. People that were moving
decided that that would be a place to move everything they didn't want to take with them. So the stack could be like 6,
8 feet high sometimes with dressers and mattresses and garbage and bags of crap and clothing
and I mean it's just intense. And it's I've been a big problem with Oakland for years all over the place. You know,
somebody will dump whatever they have in in your front yard if you're not careful.
Dan says he'd watch trucks pull up at night and unload mountains of furniture and garbage. And he called the city and
called and called and called. So you would wake up in the morning sometimes like 8 feet
to like an 8 foot pile of crap. Yeah. Yeah. And if if if the city didn't come fast
enough, it could get higher. Because once you have it's like a magnet. Once you've got a stack of
stuff, other people think, "Oh, there's an idea." And they keep stacking it, you
know. So, what did you decide to do about it? Well, that was that is a good question.
Lou and I discussed this for quite some time, and we came up with the idea of a Buddha.
To put a Buddha there. Are you Buddhist? No, we have nothing to do with Buddhism
at all. But but you were you you figured if there's one thing that might help here,
it's it's Buddha. >> Well, yeah, because he's he's neutral. I mean, you know, if if if
we threw Christ up there, he's controversial. Everybody's got a deal about him. Um
but Buddha, nobody seems to be that perturbed in general about a Buddha. So, Dan and Lou had made up their minds,
and it turns out they had a lot of options. Well, you know, we looked at the different ones, and and she picked
out 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. Lou went off to Ace Hardware and picked one out. Which, you know, she
brought home, and I liked 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 epoxy rebar into his body. And I fixed the Buddha so he'd be
looking at 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 could look over and see how he was doing. Wait, are you allowed to do
this? It feels like this is This is breaking some sort of city code. Oh, 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 um
see what happens. Dan didn't tell his neighbors about his plan. He dragged some extension cords
from his house and used a drill to affix the Buddha to a slab of concrete. And that was it. And there he was. It's like
a surprise. And he just sat there. How long before something happened? It was probably about maybe 4 months or
something of him just sitting there being concrete. But one morning I wake up and look over
and Buddha's white. Somebody's come and painted it a soft white. This is someone
had kind of carefully done this on purpose. Oh, very carefully. I mean, there's no like paint around him or any
I mean, it's strictly whoever did it took care in painting. And, you know, I thought that's
interesting. And then after that, you know, he would have an orange. And pretty soon two oranges and
maybe a pear. Just as mysteriously as Dan had installed the statue, people began
leaving little gifts, oranges or coins. One day he said he came home from work and there was a big stack of pears.
And he had no idea where they were coming from or what they represented. I assume now because of what has happened
that the Vietnamese community uh decided that, you know, he needs to be cared for. And from there it just
grew to where it is today, which is a total shrine. Yeah, will you describe what the Buddha looks like right now.
Well, the Buddha now is is like upgraded considerably. I mean, he's he's gold now. And his eyes are painted in and he
just you know, he's got a gold draped clothing and he just really top drawer cool looking Buddha. I mean, he's he's
come a long ways in terms of his dress. Um now he he sits on the kind of a a rock
pedestal kind of thing that's either granite or something. And then he is he has a house that would you know,
you could probably live in if you were a single person and small. They they the house is now around Buddha so Buddha's
protected from the rain and such? >> 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 you and Buddha's there and and he's got other friends of
Buddha's, you know, and and there's a big Kwan Yin outside which is you know, the goddess of mercy. But what what do
you what do you mean when they come to pray? Who Who's coming there? Do people come there often?
>> Yeah, every every morning at 7:00 a.m. they pray. And they have this little clacker thing.
They have a little It's like a little drum and they go clack clack clack clack. And and sometimes they'll set up tables
and have a feast, you know. And they put out food and all these people come and and they pray and they
go through that and um then they eat and they have a kind of a community. Do you ever go out and
introduce yourself? Oh, they they know who I am. So they know that you they know that you
are the man who brought the Buddha from Ace Hardware in 2009. >> And therein lies the problem.
Yes, because at every feast day, they bring over a stack of food uh and fruit and wine and a bottle of
whiskey one time. And I mean, just presents for >> Yes. Yeah. And I keep telling them
uh thanks a lot, but there's only like Lou and I and we can't eat all this stuff
and uh um >> But these aren't These aren't like your neighbors bringing over food. These are
people who are coming to visit Buddha from other neighborhoods and appreciating what you started.
Yes. And they all bow and and none of them speak English, so I bow and we all bow. It's
It's It's embarrassing kind of for me because I don't even know what they're they're
thinking, you know, but I keep trying to tell them that it's their Buddha and good luck with him and and uh adios, but
they they don't kind of go for that, you know. How many How many people are coming? How many people are coming on a
daily basis, would you say to see the Buddha? >> least 70. A day? >> A day, yeah. And then there's also the
There's also the tourist thing, you know, they'll knock on my door and they're from Minneapolis and
somebody on Facebook posted something. You know, they want to take my picture with them in front of the Buddha. It's
just for for me, you know, as cynical as I am, it this is like what is happening.
Remember, Dan and Lou 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. Well, the crime has pretty much uh
disappeared in the in in a sense. I um the drug the drug dealing definitely is gone and so is the prostitution. I mean,
there's none, zero uh within, you know, you know, quite a distance from our area now.
But, it's a slow process that I didn't really notice it happening and and didn't even think of it in those terms
until I read it in the paper. In September, over Porter 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's
what he wrote. Since 2012, when worshipers began showing up for daily prayers, overall
year-to-date crime has dropped by 82%. I mean, I think 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's
something rather sacred about things like this. Well, I I I agree and I don't know if it's superstition or
whether Buddha says, "Don't [ __ ] with this." Or what. I have no idea. But, it worked.
So, you're right. I think people do have a feeling of either respect or fear. I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter.
Crime is down 82%. >> I spoke with Dan Stevenson in 2015. In the past 4 years, things have only
gotten bigger at the Buddha. It's all thanks to one Vietnamese family. Here's Vina Vo and her husband with some
translation help from their son, Cook Vo. Every day a morning 7:00. Every day I'm
4:00. Do one day two time. 7:00 and 4:00. 6:00 I go home. Every day. I make over here.
I make my husband make over here. Uh-huh. I see him there and I put the Buddha in the
on the rock, I hear him. Uh my dad says all this to Dan here. Uh we got we got a
peaceful shrine here and make the neighbors calm down a little bit and so we got a peaceful mindfulness and
tranquility. Vina says some mornings she arrives to find that other people have brought new
incense and fresh flowers. She says it's a peaceful place. If you'd like to visit yourself,
it's easy to find these days. The Buddha is on Google Maps. Just search for the Buddha of Oakland.
It even has reviews. One says, "Best Buddha." This is beyond my wildest thought pattern. I just couldn't
I wouldn't even fathom it at that time. We called Dan last week to see what was new. It's insane in terms of what has
happened to to a concrete garden Buddha, which were you know, was just on the shelf with a whole bunch of other
Buddhas all just sitting there in the in the nursery, you know. And different things have happened along
the way, you know, like cars will miss the corner or something and hit something or or you know,
uh there's been some vandalism over the years, but every time anything happens, the
response is they make it bigger. Uh it's just you know, so it's uh it used to be just
a small one little building and then it's two and then somebody tried to they broke a
statue or something, so then it's three and then four and then there's a little shed, I guess you'd call it a shed, but
a little side building where I understand that the the guy in that building is the god of war or god of protection or
god of somebody that um has done pretty good job since they put them in to keep things calm.
Do you ever sit back and think to yourself, "Well, that was really something. That
was quite an idea I had." Well, Lou and I had the idea. Neither one of us expected much of anything
except maybe it would shift the garbage and it did that. But then this has been outrageous, you
know. Do you still have anybody knocking on your door coming and saying, "Hi, are
you the guy? Are you the famous Dan who put up the Buddha?" Yeah, I I pretty much get that.
Uh not a whole lot, but more than uh I would expect at this point in time. And also people stopping me on the
streets, somehow they've you know, not even close to my house and they have a reference point. Or somebody
will in some business uh someplace will recognize me. Um I don't even know where they find the
information out, tell you the truth, or how they figured it's me, but they do and it's um it's I guess it's
nice. It's to me I've you know, I put the Buddha in and I'm done. You know, the rest of this is is somebody else's
work, you know. So, I I helped start it, you know, and um you know. And Lou and I had lots of discussions
before you know, we did it because she's much more positive than I am. So, um I would I always look at how are
they going to wreck it as opposed to the possibilities and she's much more of a possibility person.
You know, she was right. She definitely Well, she's right on a lot of things. Uh
not just the Buddha. Uh we spend a lot of time talking uh spirituality and and the greater
things and she's pretty much on the mark on most of it. Way ahead of me. You know, just
you know, way ahead of me. Uh she's much more positive. You know, this is one of our We have 119
episodes, and this is one of our most popular episodes ever. Wow. Why do you think this story gets to
people? Well, uh I would say that it's positive. You know, it's a it's a positive story of,
you know, actually hope. Uh I mean, it truly blows my mind that that it exists in the world that we live in.
It's just like it's almost counter to everything that I hear constantly. But, it's it's
not really because it's happening everywhere. It's just that um we only hear the bad parts most of the time. So,
it's just a kind of a giving thing. Uh you know, the the people that are involved with it are I mean, they give.
It's a giving, you know, of their beliefs and their stuff. Um and people that come just respect
that. I mean, we now have, you know, uh certain I'm I haven't kept track of it, but there's tour buses now that come to
visit. You know, and here's this huge bus coming trying to get through the uh um
streets, you know, they're they're rather smallish in terms of buses, uh to drop people off uh to
take photos and stuff. It's It's impressive. I I I never realized how something like this could do be this,
you know. I mean, it it certainly uh inspires people to to better things, I think.
Anything else going on in your life? Too much to mention. I keep busy all the time.
>> My name is Kurt Kohlstedt and I am the digital director and a producer at 99%
Invisible. And I I work on episodes and articles and other things for this show, which is
all about design and built environments. Kurt says Dan's Buddha can be viewed through the lens of a design concept
known as hostile architecture. Hostile architecture is one facet of efforts to quote design out crime.
Change something about public space in order to deter unwanted behavior. A few years ago, a community group in
Hamburg, Germany got fed up with the constant smell of urine in their neighborhood. A neighborhood packed with
nightclubs. And they decided to fight back with a special kind of paint. This paint is designed to be used on
boats and will not absorb liquid. If it won't absorb liquid, they thought, maybe it will repel urine.
They were right. When someone walked out of a nightclub and attempted to relieve themselves on a
wall, their urine quote bounced back onto them. Other cities have followed suit.
Cities implement design changes like spikes on window sills to prevent people from sitting down. Armrests on benches
aren't just to give us a place to rest our elbows. They also prevent people from lying down.
Hostile architecture is often criticized for being less than subtle in its attempt to drive away a city's homeless
population. While cities come in and try to alter the public's behavior from the top down,
often in aggressive ways, there are also plenty of examples of citizens stepping in.
Like Dan Stevenson with his Buddha implementing changes from the bottom up. Changes that may or may not be legal.
Kurt says, "There are a lot of playful examples of this." So, parklets are essentially public parking spaces
converted into little parks. The idea got really big after this group called Rebar in San Francisco
made a parklet and it went really viral online. And essentially all they did was they
rolled out some sod and they put some furniture out on the grass and they fed the meter
and then they just waited to see what would happen. And some people stopped by and actually
used the parklet. And as they tell the story, a traffic cop came by, too, and was saying, "Hey, you know, I'm
going to have to write you a ticket." And they said, "No, we've legally rented this spot." And they kind of got him to
go away. Um so so through this kind of loophole, they they legally occupy this space by
paying the rent, paying the meter. Uh which is just a different way to think about this kind of public space,
right? We think about it as a space for cars. They thought about it as a space for a park.
It's not really what it was what the law was designed to accommodate and yet they're making the law work for them and
work for the public. But there are a lot of things out there that kind of skirt this line of legal or
illegal. And I was thinking, you know, like about like fire hydrants. Right. Yeah, I mean, fire hydrants are kind of
this classic thing where you you've seen everybody's seen scenes of movies where
kids are playing in the street and the fire hydrants, you know, pouring water and everybody's having fun.
And you know, it's one of those things we all know, if we think about it, that's that's probably technically
illegal. And in fact, it usually is. You can get fined for doing that. But there are also cases where, you
know, the firefighters will actually come along and like help people open up the hydrants. So, it kind of goes back
and forth. And it and it goes way back, too. So, there was this heat wave in the late
1800s in New York City where the city just said, "You know what? We're going to open up the hydrants. We're going to
distribute ice. Uh we're going to basically help cool down the city and uh and keep people
safe and happy." And, you know, all this back and forth, is it legal, is it illegal? Eventually,
New York came up with this kind of novel compromise where they created these caps that control the
flow of water. It makes it so it's safer to use, it wastes less water, but it still lets people crack open these
hydrants. So, it's this kind of acceptance by the city that, you know, people are going to do this. Let's maybe
try to find a way that they can do it more safely and not just kind of recklessly like
it's been done in the past. In Chicago, when I grew up, it would get really hot in the summers and there would be fire
hydrants that would be opened. And I remember very clearly being a a girl and it's really powerful, the water. I mean,
this is it's too much. It's almost too powerful but the the force of the water coming
out of this thing for like a 7-year-old girl to be playing in. Um but there was something about it that
the city, that the firefighters, that the police were acknowledging, "Hey, we just got to get through today cuz it's
115. So, let's bend these rules. Let's all just come together." And it felt really nice. Yeah, and I I I
think I think that is part of the appeal. It's like it breaks down these barriers.
Like we think it, you know, oh, city infrastructure is for city stuff and we're not allowed to touch that. And
these people are here to enforce laws and put out fires. But yeah, there that's kind of beautiful, you know, when
those when those barriers break down and and we realize, "No, this city is is all of ours and like
here's a a novel way or a different way to to put its infrastructure to use." What are other examples of people
playing with their environment? I mean, one of the one of the types that I'm particularly fascinated by is is
sort of it's generally known as gorilla gardening and this idea it goes back to the 70s and it sort of started with
people taking over abandoned lots in New York and turning them into community gardens. And it you know, it started out
illegal and some of those gardens since become legal. So, there's this group in San Francisco that
call themselves the gorilla grafters. And their approach to gorilla gardening is sort of different from most. Instead
of, you know, trying to plant new things or take over abandoned spaces, they're actively grafting
fruit-bearing branches onto non-fruit-bearing trees. So, essentially, they're turning these
these ornamental trees into fruit-bearing trees in the city. And you know, at first you'd think,
"Hey, who who would have a problem with that, right?" I mean, it's they're they're creating food where
there was no food before and that's kind of their take on it. Um but it turns out that that those
trees are ornamental for a reason. The city doesn't want them attracting animals. They don't want to like have
these fruits falling and making messes that the city then has to clean up. And so, these grafters end up having to
work kind of under the radar. Wait, so just so just tell me exactly what they're doing, this gorilla
gardening. They're putting like an apple branch on like a maple tree? I did not really understand that you
could do this. But essentially, you can make a little cut into an existing tree and attach
a little scion, like a living branch, and then it heals in place and becomes part of that existing tree. So, you
don't convert the entire tree into a fruit-bearing tree, but you add a fruit-bearing branch to that tree.
And then over time, you know, these producing fruit. And the idea is that, you know, anybody
can walk up and just kind of say, "Oh, there's an apple on this tree. I can eat that."
And it's subtle. It's a subtle intervention, and probably nobody would be the wiser until suddenly there was
fruit all along the block. These are all examples, Dan and his Buddha included, of people kind of
thinking outside the box. Yes, and I think that's that's the most interesting thing about all of this,
right? Like we we have a way that we think of cities. We think of cities as being planned things, where if you want
to get something to change, maybe you talk to a city council. But what these kinds of projects show is that there are
a lot of opportunities to try, you know, what Dan Stevenson did, and you can say,
"I'm just going to go get this Buddha and stick it to the ground and see what happens, you know,
ask for forgiveness, not permission." And what I find really fascinating about the Dan Stevenson example is that people
love it, too, right? People come and care for it and love it, and it's become part of the community that, you know,
Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike seem to really appreciate. You You You just went back there. You
just saw it. You were just there last night. I was. And it's amazing. I mean, at night you
can see it from blocks away. I mean, there are these blinking lights, these sort of spiraling blinking lights.
Um When you get close, you can really smell the incense. And there are all these different
Buddhas. Some are white, and some are painted, and they're different sizes, different materials.
And the original Buddha isn't actually the central Buddha. He's sort of sitting off to one side in this smaller hut. Um
So, he kind of sparked this thing, but he's not at the heart of it anymore. It's just been taken over and grown.
And, you know, behind the main building there there are a couple of brooms, which I assume, you know, is part of the
keeping area clean effort. So, it is doing what Dan Stevenson wanted it to. It's it's it's getting people invested
and keeping the area clean. But, it's also taken on a life of its own. And what's really crazy, I I just
found this last night, if you turn the corner just just another block and a half away from this shrine,
is another one. And it's like a smaller version of the same thing, but it's growing.
And I I could just imagine in like 5 or 10 years, these could just be all over the neighborhood, right?
So, I don't know. I I think it's you know, what started with this one Buddha has become something much much
bigger. Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer.
Susanna Roberson is our assistant producer. Audio mix by Michael Raphael. Special thanks to Kurt Kohlstedt at 99%
Invisible, Eric Mennel, Alex Blayre, and Kobi McDonald. Julian Alexander makes original
illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.
We're on Facebook and Twitter @criminalshow. Criminal is recorded in the studios of
North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collection of the best podcasts around.
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Radiotopia from PRX.

Dan Stevenson has lived in Oakland’s Eastlake neighborhood for 40 years. He says crime has been an issue for as long as he can remember, but he isn’t one to call the police. He’s a pretty “live and let live” kind of guy. Or he was. Before he finally got fed up and took matters into his own hands.

We update one of our favorite episodes about “the Buddha of Oakland” with news and additional interviews, including a chat with Kurt Kohlstedt from 99% Invisible (https://99percentinvisible.org/) about other creative community interventions, including parklets and Guerrilla gardening.

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.

Join Criminal Plus on Patreon for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, listener chat rooms, behind-the-scenes content, and more membership perks. https://www.patreon.com/Criminal

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Episode 119 originally published July 19, 2019. https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-119-hes-still-neutral-7-19-2019/

Music in this episode: “Audio Boxing” by アイソトープ 217° “Obsesión” by Chuy Reyes & His Orchestra “Sparkle” by Billband “Linger” by David Szesztay “Lighsun” by David Szesztay “Humming” by David Szesztay “Watching My Fingers Instrumental” by Blue Dot Sessions

Brief Summary

Dan Stevenson shares how a Buddha statue transformed crime in Oakland, fostering community and reducing local issues.

Key points

A Surprising Community Response. The Buddha statue attracted offerings and prayers from the local Vietnamese community.
From Garbage to Shrine. A concrete Buddha became a sacred space for the community, transforming the neighborhood.
The Buddha's Unexpected Impact. Dan and Lou's installation of a Buddha statue led to a significant drop in crime.
Hostile Architecture Explained. Cities implement design changes to deter homelessness, like spikes on window sills.
The Parklet Movement. Public parking spaces are transformed into parks, sparking community engagement.
Fire Hydrants and Community. Cities adapt to community needs by allowing creative uses of fire hydrants during heat waves.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You just learn to deal with it.

Dan's perspective on living in a city with crime.

1:19WatchJun 30, 2026

Tension

45/ 100Some tension

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