00:00:00
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
00:00:07
all kinds of things over the years here. You know, so it is an issue for lots of people.
00:00:11
There is maybe like five or six years ago,
you know, the community group gave everybody
00:00:17
whistles in case somebody, especially women
or something were accosted or somebody was
00:00:22
following them. They just had to blow their whistle and alert
other people that something was up, you know.
00:00:27
Phoebe Judge: This is Dan Stevenson. He and his wife, Lu, have lived in Oakland,
California, for 40 years.
00:00:34
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.
00:00:42
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
00:00:50
city stuff that you know, once you live in
the city long enough, you got to at least
00:00:54
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
00:01:04
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
00:01:15
your business and he did his business and
you did yours? Dan Stevenson: That's correct.
00:01:18
Yeah. Phoebe Judge: And you just stayed out of each
other's way? Dan Stevenson: Right, I mean I wouldn't call
the police.
00:01:25
Phoebe Judge: Why? Dan Stevenson: [Laughs.] Well, first of all, I don't trust the police.
00:01:30
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
00:01:42
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.
00:01:53
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
00:01:58
might be selling drugs. But it's another thing when there is a man
right outside your bedroom window at 3:00
00:02:05
am. This is what happened to Dan and Lu about
five years ago. Dan Stevenson: My wife was here and we went
to bed.
00:02:12
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
00:02:20
up there. There are no stairs, you have to climb partly
up a tree and then, lift yourself up over
00:02:26
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
00:02:34
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.
00:02:47
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
00:02:54
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
00:03:04
of it. So, we started to talk. Phoebe Judge: It took Dan 45 minutes but he
talked the guy down.
00:03:11
Nobody got hurt. If he had gone the official route, with the
cops, he says it would have been a real pain.
00:03:16
Dan Stevenson: And then, I would have been
up for another two hours, you know, filling
00:03:20
out reports with them. By — within 45 minutes, I was back asleep
and it was all good.
00:03:25
Phoebe Judge: But even this guy, the most
patient, live and let live guy in the neighborhood,
00:03:30
eventually hit his limit. And when he got fed up, he did something desperate. Something that makes absolutely no sense to
anyone.
00:03:39
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,
00:04:00
a gigantic pile of garbage. The city put in a traffic diverter across
the street from their house.
00:04:09
It's about 500ft from their front door. Dan Stevenson: A concrete divide with a space
in the middle, with trees and nobody took
00:04:16
care of it. Phoebe Judge: Nobody took care of it and so,
it became a de facto garbage dump.
00:04:21
Dan Stevenson: People that were removing decided
that would be a place to move everything they
00:04:26
didn't want to take with them. So, the stack would be like six, eight feet
high sometimes with dressers, mattresses and
00:04:36
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.
00:04:46
You know, somebody will dump whatever they
have in your front yard if you are not careful.
00:04:51
Phoebe Judge: Dan says he watched trucks pull
up at night and load mountains of furniture
00:04:55
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
00:05:05
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
00:05:15
like a magnet. Once you got a stack of stuff other people
think, ‘Oh there is an idea,’ and they
00:05:21
keep stacking it, you know. Phoebe Judge: So, what did you decide to do
about it?
00:05:26
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,
00:05:41
to put a Buddha there. Phoebe Judge: Are you Buddhists? Dan Stevenson: No, we have nothing to do with
Buddhism at all.
00:05:46
Phoebe Judge: But you figured if there is
one thing that might help here, it's Buddha.
00:05:52
Dan Stevenson: Well, yeah. Because he’s neutral. I mean if we threw Christ up there, he is
controversial.
00:06:01
Everybody has got a deal about him. But Buddha, nobody seems to be that perturbed
in general about a Buddha.
00:06:12
[Music.] Phoebe Judge: So, Dan and Lu made up their
minds and it turns out they had a lot of options.
00:06:23
Dan Stevenson: You know, we look at the different
ones and she picked up one that she liked
00:06:27
the face because you know they come out of
a concrete cast. So, some of them look more mellow than others.
00:06:34
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
00:06:40
to me. And then he sat in the basement for about
three or four months because I couldn't figure
00:06:45
out a way to put him over there without having
him stolen or ruined, and those things would
00:06:51
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.
00:07:03
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.
00:07:10
So, when I get up in the morning and have
my coffee, I can look over and see how he
00:07:13
is doing? Phoebe Judge: Wait, are you allowed to do
this? It feels like this breaking some sort of city
code.
00:07:19
Dan Stevenson: [Laughs.] Allowed, that's another thing. It's best not to ask before you do things,
because it's always, no.
00:07:27
You know, you kind of just do it and see what
happens. Phoebe Judge: Dan didn't tell his neighbors
about his plan.
00:07:35
He dragged some extension cord from his house
and used a drill to affix the Buddha to a
00:07:40
slab of concrete. And that was it. Dan Stevenson: And there he was, it was like
a surprise.
00:07:45
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
00:07:55
there being concrete. But one morning, I wake up and look over and
Buddha is white.
00:08:01
Someone has come and painted him a soft white. Phoebe Judge: This was, someone had kind of
carefully done this on purpose.
00:08:07
Dan Stevenson: Oh very carefully, I mean there
is no like paint around him or any … I mean
00:08:12
strictly whoever did it took care in painting. and you know, I thought that's interesting.
00:08:19
And then, after that you know, you will have
an orange and pretty soon two oranges and
00:08:26
maybe a pear. Phoebe Judge: Just as mysteriously, as Dan
had installed this statue, people began leaving
00:08:32
little gifts, oranges or coins. One day, he said he came back home from work
and there was a big sack of pears.
00:08:39
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
00:08:50
decided that he needs to be cared for and
from there it just grew to where it is today,
00:08:55
which is a total shrine. Phoebe Judge: Yeah, will you describe what
the Buddha looks like right now?
00:09:01
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...
00:09:11
You know, he's got gold-draped clothing and
he is just really top-drawer cool-looking
00:09:17
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
00:09:30
or something. And then, he is ... He has a house that you
could probably live in if you were a single
00:09:36
person and small. Phoebe Judge: The house is now around Buddha. So, Buddha is protected from the rain and
such?
00:09:43
Dan Stevenson: Oh yeah. And so, if you wanted to pray there, which
they do constantly, you just slip inside the
00:09:49
little building and you kneel down and Buddha
is there and he's got other friends of Buddhas,
00:09:55
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?
00:10:03
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
00:10:11
thing, it's like a little drum. It goes claak claak- claak -claak -claak. [Singing in a foreign language.]
00:10:23
Dan Stevenson: And sometimes, they will set
up tables and have a feast, you know.
00:10:30
And they put out food and all these people
come and they pray and they go through that,
00:10:34
and they eat and they have a kind of a community. Phoebe Judge: Do you ever go and introduce
yourself?
00:10:41
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
00:10:50
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
00:11:05
of whiskey one time. I mean, it's just… Phoebe Judge: To say thank you. Dan Stevenson: Presents for … Yes.
00:11:12
Yeah and I keep telling them, thanks a lot
but there is only like Lu and we can't eat
00:11:18
all of this stuff and… Phoebe Judge: But these aren't like your neighbors
bringing over food.
00:11:23
These are people who are coming to visit the
Buddha from other neighborhoods and appreciating
00:11:28
what you started. Dan Stevenson: Yes and they all bow and none
of them speak English, So, I bow and we all
00:11:37
bow [Laughing.] It's embarrassing, kind of, for me because
I don't even know what they are thinking,
00:11:43
you know. But I keep trying to tell them that it's their
Buddha and good luck with him and adios.
00:11:50
But they don't kind of go for that, you know. Phoebe Judge: How many people are coming?
00:11:56
How many people are coming on a daily basis
would you say to see the Buddha? Dan Stevenson: Oh, at least 70.
00:12:00
Phoebe Judge: A day? Dan Stevenson: A day, yeah. And then, there is also the [laughs] there
is also the tourists thing.
00:12:06
They’ll knock on my door and they are from
Minneapolis and somebody on Facebook posted
00:12:12
something [laughs] so you know, they want
to take my picture with them in front of the
00:12:17
Buddha. It's just for me you know, as cynical as I
am, this is like what is happening?
00:12:24
Phoebe Judge: Remember, Dan and Lu put the
Buddha up as a sort of desperate shot in the
00:12:29
dark, a truly random attempt to curtail dumping
and crime and he accidentally created a sacred
00:12:35
place for members of Oakland's Vietnamese
Buddhist community. But that's not the end of the story.
00:12:40
Dan Stevenson: Oh, the crime has pretty much
disappeared, in a sense. The drug dealing has definitely gone and so,
has the prostitution.
00:12:50
I mean there is none, zero. Within, you know quite a distance from our
area now.
00:12:58
But it's a slow process that I didn't really
notice it happening and didn't even think
00:13:02
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
00:13:09
Dan and the Buddha and asked the Oakland Police
Department for the updated crime statistics
00:13:15
for the neighborhood. Here is what he wrote. ''Since 2012, when worshippers began showing
up for daily prayers, overall year to date
00:13:24
crime has dropped by 82%.'' I mean we all have some respect for religious
symbols, whether it's the religion that we
00:13:35
ascribe to, whether we ascribe to a religion
at all. I mean there is something rather sacred about
things like this.
00:13:41
Dan Stevenson: Well, I agree, and I don't
know if it's superstition or whether Buddha
00:13:47
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
00:13:59
know. Phoebe Judge: I guess it doesn't matter, crime
is down 82%. Dan Stevenson: I guess it doesn't.
00:14:05
[Laughs.] [Singing in a foreign language.] Phoebe Judge: Criminal is produced by Lauren
Spohrer, Eric Mennel and me.
00:14:25
Special thanks to Alex Blair for her help
with recordings. Julienne Alexander does our episode art.
00:14:31
You can find out more about the show at thisiscriminal.com. And you can check out the other Radiotopia
shows at radiotopia.fm.
00:14:39
Like Strangers, hosted by Lea Thau. Her latest episode deals with crime and mental
illness, focusing on a father and son.
00:14:48
Speaker: I call my wife, I go, ''Nina, Matthew
killed somebody.'' She goes, ''Oh my god, Steve.
00:14:54
Oh my god Steve. Oh my god, Steve, oh my god.'' I go, ''Babe, just hold on. I will be there in a minute.''
00:15:01
I get home, I gave her the newspaper, she
is just in total shock. Phoebe Judge: That's the latest episode of
Strangers.
00:15:08
It's really great — you should go listen. Radiotopia from PRX is made possible with
support from the Knight Foundation and MailChimp,
00:15:16
celebrating creativity, chaos, and teamwork. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
00:15:22
Jingle: Radiotopia from PRX.