Revealed: Californian neighborhood saw crime drop by 82% – after fed-up resident erected a BUDDHA STATUE<\/h1>\n

\n
• The statue is located on a traffic divider in Oakland’s Eastlake area\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n
• It was put there by resident Dan Stevenson as a random attempt to deter crime<\/span><\/li>\n
• READ MORE:\u00a0Etiquette expert’s tips on tackling awkward restaurant moments<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  A non-religious man fed up with crime and vandalism in his neighborhood managed to transform the area – with a store-bought Buddha statue.<\/p>\n

  Dan Stevenson and his wife Lu had lived in\u00a0Oakland’s Eastlake area for 40 years and learnt to live with rampant crime, including muggings, assaults and drug-dealing.<\/p>\n

  But Dan’s capacity for tolerance expired when people began using a traffic divider with a space in the middle – visible from his home about 500ft away – as a ‘garbage dump’.<\/p>\n

  To deter criminals and litterers, the pair bought a small Buddha statue from ACE Hardware and fixed it to a concrete slab on the divider, located\u00a0at the intersection of East 19th Street and 11th Avenue. The result? Some might say miraculous – crime plummeted.<\/p>\n

  Why a Buddha? Speaking about the effect of the statue, installed in 2009, on the\u00a0Criminal podcast in 2015, Dan said: ‘<\/span>Because he\u2019s neutral. I mean, if we threw Christ up there, he is\u00a0controversial. But Buddha, nobody seems to be that perturbed in general about a Buddha.’<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

  Oakland resident Dan Stevenson installed a store-bought Buddha statue on a traffic divider (above) in his neighborhood of\u00a0Eastlake – a random attempt to deter crime\u00a0<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

  Dan purchased the Buddha (above) from ACE Hardware. Picture courtesy of Creative Commons licensing\u00a0<\/p>\n

  Initially, Dan hoped the presence of the ‘neutral figure’ would bring a sense of peace to the neighborhood – but he did not expect it to completely transform the area.<\/p>\n

  Speaking to the Criminal podcast’s host, Phoebe Judge, he said: ‘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 the Buddha is white. Someone has come and painted him a soft white.’<\/p>\n

  From then on, people began ‘leaving little gifts’ of oranges or coins. One day Dan said he came home from work to find a sack of pears but had no idea ‘where they were coming from or what they represented’.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

  The podcast revealed that people ‘from all over the neighborhood’ began visiting the Buddha, with Phoebe commenting that what began as a\u00a0‘truly random attempt to curtail dumping and crime’ became a ‘sacred place for members of Oakland’s Vietnamese Buddhist community’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

  Pictured are offerings of fruits and flowers to the Buddha. Picture courtesy of Creative Commons licensing\u00a0<\/p>\n

  Not only that, but after the Buddha was installed ‘crime pretty much disappeared’, according to Dan.<\/p>\n

  Dan said that locals know he was responsible for the statue’s appearance and sometimes offer him gifts by way of thanks, from fruit to wine and even bottles of whiskey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

  Dan admitted he had no idea why the Buddha has been so effective, citing superstition, fear, or respect as possible explanations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

  The decrease in crime was highlighted by reporter Chris Johnson in an article for the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle (published online in the\u00a0San Francisco Gate) in 2014.\u00a0<\/p>\n

  The reporter asked the police to check their crime statistics for the block radius around the statue and found crime had dropped significantly.<\/p>\n

  On the findings, Chris\u00a0wrote: ‘Since 2012, when worshipers began showing up for daily prayers, the overall year-to-date crime rate dropped by 82 per cent.<\/p>\n

  ‘Robbery reports went from 14 to three, aggravated assaults from five to zero, burglaries from eight to four, narcotics from three to none, and prostitution from three to none.’<\/p>\n

  Chris asked a police statistician about the data, who commented: ‘I can’t say what to attribute it to, but these are the numbers.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

  After the Buddha was installed crime in Eastlake dropped by 82 per cent. Above is a general view of Oakland\u00a0<\/p>\n

  The Buddha still stands today in 2023 – having had multiple upgrades over the years.<\/p>\n

  People added gold-draped clothing, placed it on a ‘rock pedestal’ and there are now three huts.<\/p>\n

  And while its long-term effect on crime is uncertain, it’s definitely popular.\u00a0<\/p>\n

  Noted as a ‘Place of Worship’ on Google, it attracts visitors from across the country and has gained a 4.9-star rating from 80 reviewers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

  One reviewer, Sarah Nichols, who visited the Buddha earlier this year, wrote: ‘The Buddha of Oakland is still here! I\u2019ve been hoping to see it since I learned about it four years ago in 2019. I live in Lincoln, Nebraska, but came to San Francisco for my birthday and a friend from Alameda helped me find the shrine.’<\/p>\n

  Photos show various offerings placed within the huts, from religious symbols, flowers, candles, and fruits to photographs of Buddhas and LED lights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

  Source: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Revealed: Californian neighborhood saw crime drop by 82% – after fed-up resident erected a BUDDHA STATUE The statue is located on a traffic divider in Oakland’s Eastlake area\u00a0 It was put there by resident Dan Stevenson as a random attempt to deter crime READ MORE:\u00a0Etiquette expert’s tips on tackling awkward restaurant moments A non-religious man […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n