BOSTON (WHDH) - A child pricked by a needle while playing football is the latest incident at a Roxbury park that has community members demanding action.
The 9-year-old boy was injured while at Clifford Park Wednesday night, practicing with the Boston Bengals Pop Warner football team when a discarded syringe cut practice short.
“(He was) holding his leg and telling ‘Mommy, help me, please help me,” said the boy’s mother, who wished to keep herself and her son anonymous. “My heart dropped from under my chest to the floor. No mother wants to see their kids go through something like that.”
The young boy who was injured Wednesday was taken away by ambulance and is now home, taking antiviral medications for several weeks to come.
The mother wanted to share his story and the experiences of so others in the area close to Mass. and Cass. The incident was also the basis for a larger conversation about safety at Clifford Park during a special Boston City Council hearing on Friday.
“We do have a concern and we do believe just like you do that every single child, every single community member that frequents that park deserves a safe environment,” said Tania Del Rio, who has helped coordinate a response team to address problems at the park.
The three-hour meeting turned passionate at times, with some city leaders and the 9-year-old’s football coach sounding off on the situation.
“This problem isn’t going away, it isn’t getting any better and as long as we allow and we reward poor behaviors, we’re on this treadmill that we’re not going to get off,” said City Councilor Frank Baker.
“You do not need to be sitting as a chair of a committee when you’re ignorant to the needs of the community,” said coach Domingos DaRosa, who said he was furious that his players were subjected to drugs, sex and human waste on their football field, just like he was when he used the field as a child.
Even with needle disposal bins visible at the park, DaRosa said kids deserve their own space to just be kids.
“This is what these kids in the community are looking for – they’re just looking for a safe haven,” DaRosa said outside of the hearing. “And how do we provide them that when the one place they can go is saturated with drugs, prostitution, drug usage, violence, and the city’s response is ‘we’re doing the best we can.'”
Some members of the panel that gathered Friday said the city should look to other cities to see how they addressed similar issues, while others also said that the programs currently in Boston are not doing enough.
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