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Buddha seems to bring tranquility to Oakland neighborhood
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2014 Sep 17, 5:02am 1,646 views 4 comments
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2
gsr
2014 Sep 17, 6:17am
I wonder what a statue of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will do.
San Franciscans would love that deity. In a free market, we should try different things at different places.
3
Peter P
2014 Sep 17, 6:18am
Peter P
2014 Sep 17, 6:18am
I wonder what a statue of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will do.
San Franciscans would love that deity. In a free market, we should try different things at different places.
The FSM favors Olive Garden!
4
Tenpoundbass
2014 Sep 17, 8:35am
Tenpoundbass
2014 Sep 17, 8:35am
I've got one in my on my patio next to the water fountain.
It's where I go for my ME time.
Even criminals can be suckers of a nice statue. Lets see if Buddha statue can increase house prices too :).
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Dan Stevenson is neither a Buddhist nor a follower of any organized religion.
The 11th Avenue resident in Oakland's Eastlake neighborhood was simply feeling hopeful in 2009 when he went to an Ace hardware store, purchased a 2-foot-high stone Buddha and installed it on a median strip in a residential area at 11th Avenue and 19th Street.
He hoped that just maybe his small gesture would bring tranquillity to a neighborhood marred by crime: dumping, graffiti, drug dealing, prostitution, robberies, aggravated assault and burglaries.
What happened next was nothing short of stunning. Area residents began to leave offerings at the base of the Buddha: flowers, food, candles. A group of Vietnamese women in prayer robes began to gather at the statue to pray.
And the neighborhood changed. People stopped dumping garbage. They stopped vandalizing walls with graffiti. And the drug dealers stopped using that area to deal. The prostitutes went away.
I asked police to check their crime statistics for the block radius around the statue, and here's what they found: Since 2012, when worshipers began showing up for daily prayers, overall year-to-date crime has dropped by 82 percent. 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.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/johnson/article/Buddha-seems-to-bring-tranquillity-to-Oakland-5757592.php
#crime