Boston city leaders are trying to find a way to make Clifford Park in Roxbury safer after reports of dirty needles and drug usage. It has become such a problem that a football coach started shouting at a city council hearing on the issue Friday.
Domingos DaRosa coaches the Boston Bengals Pop Warner football team. At practice Wednesday night, one of his players was pricked by a needle and taken away in an ambulance. DaRosa said it happens far too often.
"None of the kids on the Boston Bengals deserve what they see day in and day out," DaRosa said during the hearing.
The player who was injured is only 9 years old. Reached by phone, the child’s mother said she is horrified.
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"He was in tears, holding his leg and saying I’m going to die. No mother wants to see their kid go through that," she said.
At the hearing on the dangers of the park, city leaders said they have Boston Police patrolling the area around the clock and a mobile sharps team sweeping it twice a day. They also have recovery services teams out at the park, but they know their efforts are still not enough.
“More could have been done earlier. More has been done now and some of the things we have done haven’t worked,” Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, Boston’s chief of environment, energy and open space said.
Everyone at the hearing agreed in order to fix the park, they have to address the root of the problem, which is the drug and homeless population at Mass and Cass.
DaRosa said he will not stop until his players are safe.
“I’m not going to shut up. I’m not disappearing because the issue is not going to disappear,” DaRosa said.
He believes one thing that could help right away is ensuring all of the lights at the park work. He said that would help his players see the needles, so they can avoid them.
