19 March 2021|Media<\/p>\n
Parents of pupils at a school near Richmond\u2019s controversial injecting room were told not to use the main entrance on Thursday after a dead body was found outside<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mums and dads say they are \u201cliving in constant fear\u201d and the suspected drug overdose is just the latest in a long list of crimes that blight their neighbourhood.<\/a><\/p>\n The Herald Sun can reveal Richmond West Primary School, which is metres from the injecting room, had been placed into lockdown twice in less than a week.<\/p>\n In one incident a man was caught inside the school grounds allegedly wielding a knife at 2.50pm on Wednesday. He was charged with trespass, possessing a controlled weapon and breach of bail.<\/p>\n One parent said her son had seen drug users injecting themselves in the school grounds and had seen several people overdosing nearby.<\/p>\n \u201cI am too fearful to send my son to school,\u201d she said. \u201cHe has picked up needles when walking to school, he has seen fights, all of it \u2014 it needs to stop.<\/p>\n \u201cThis injecting room has been nothing but trouble \u2014 it needs to be moved. I\u2019m scared a child is going to get seriously hurt due to the violent people this place \u00adattracts.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are living in fear, constant fear. Our lives matter too.\u201d<\/p>\n Nearby resident Mark \u00adSoffer, who has lived in the area for five years, said the issue got worse every year.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t walk down the street without coming across someone who is under the \u00adinfluence of drugs,\u201d Mr Soffer said. \u201cThe reality is, people like us with young kids are thinking of moving out. We don\u2019t want to raise our daughter in this environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Another local, who has lived in the area for more than 20 years, said she had seen men unwittingly expose themselves to children while high on drugs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just disgusting,\u201d she said. \u201cI can\u2019t believe this is happening around school grounds. I am looking to move out of the area as it\u2019s just become so dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there needs to be more security around this \u00adfacility and more police \u2014 it\u2019s not safe and not a nice place to raise a family.\u201d<\/p>\n A Victoria Police spokeswoman said: \u201cOur focus on detecting, \u00addeterring and preventing crime while also apprehending offenders is unwavering.<\/p>\n \u201cWe understand it would be confronting to witness incidents of criminal activity or anti-social behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n Opposition mental health spokeswoman Emma Kealy said heroin-related overdose deaths and ambulance attendances were on the rise and kids were regularly locked down in the classroom.<\/p>\n \u201cA dead body outside a Labor government-operated drug-injecting centre, and violent drug-induced behaviour, is something no child should face on their walk to school,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n But Health Minister Martin Foley backed the injecting room\u2019s location. \u201cWhere the drug market operates, sadly, is in the North Richmond community, and that is where this centre is and that is where it will continue to operate for the rest of this five-year trial that is under way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is why every independent review that has looked at this process supports it being where the harm is, and that is why this government will continue to support it.\u201d<\/p>\n An education department spokesman said the safety and wellbeing of students, staff and school communities was the highest priority.<\/p>\n \u201cThe school currently takes appropriate steps to ensure students are kept safe from \u00adissues in the local community, with secure fencing, CCTV, strong protocols in place to support students who may witness any incident, and a comprehensive student wellbeing program,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n AFTERNOON OF HORROR UNFOLDS<\/strong><\/p>\n For North Richmond mum Tina, her daily routine includes seeing discarded heroin syringes, passed-out drug users and deals on the street.<\/p>\n Like many parents, she doesn\u2019t feel like her voice is being heard.<\/p>\n It\u2019s what has become the norm. A daily cycle of violence, disturbance and fear.<\/p>\n The shocking has become the every day.<\/p>\n When the Herald Sun visited drug-plagued Lennox Street on Wednesday, a string of shocking incidents unfolded within minutes.<\/p>\n Outside Richmond\u2019s controversial supervised injecting room a man was seen lying under a tree \u2014 overdosed \u2014 just after 1.30pm.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has just become the norm for us,\u201d a resident told the Herald Sun.<\/p>\n A group of men emerge from the facility, then rummage through the comatosed man\u2019s belongings.<\/p>\n A terrified mother, passing by, is seen tightly holding on to her child\u2019s hand. She walks off the footpath and into the road to avoid the chaos.<\/p>\n A local resident, who was visibly panicked, immediately phoned triple-0, to alert them to the man\u2019s condition and theft of his belongings.<\/p>\n Then, just before the bell rings for end of the school day, a man is seen, brandishing a knife, in the school grounds.<\/p>\n Stunned parents look on as police officers swoop on him.<\/p>\n The incident sends the primary school into lockdown.<\/p>\n Tina, waiting to pick up her children, said she was left \u201cshocked\u201d by the incident.<\/p>\n \u201cThis makes me feel really scared, our voices are not being heard,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are sick of finding needles everywhere and seeing people overdosed constantly, this is getting out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n Back at the overdosed man, paramedics have arrived and are working on the motionless figure. He is revived, an hour after the initial triple-0 call, awakening with a jolt.<\/p>\n He begins to shout, opening his bag and pulling out dozens of syringes.<\/p>\n A safe injecting room worker who attempted to help him was then forcibly pushed \u2014 with the man screaming: \u201cLeave me alone, leave my stuff alone\u201d.<\/p>\n Another man on drugs, who walks out from the injecting facility, rolls up his T-shirt to cover his face. He then chases a man, who has to seek refuge in a neighbour\u2019s back garden as the thug continues to hurl abuse.<\/p>\n Another resident calls out \u201cnothing has changed in years\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be honest, whoever thought it was a smart idea to put an injecting facility near a school is truly stupid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n On Thursday a man is found dead. It is believed to be drug-related.<\/p>\n Back outside the injecting room complex, a group of men are seen brazenly drug dealing<\/p>\n And the daily cycle begins again.<\/p>\n <\/a>suzan.delibasic@news.com.au<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a>Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 19 March 2021|Media Parents of pupils at a school near Richmond\u2019s controversial injecting room were told not to use the main entrance on Thursday after a dead body was found outside. Mums and dads say they are \u201cliving in constant fear\u201d and the suspected drug overdose is just the latest in a long list of crimes that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-injecting-room"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}