Police respond to dozens of violent incidents at North Richmond injecting room

Police and paramedics have been called out to dozens of violent incidents at the trouble-plagued injecting room, Freedom of Information data reveals.

Police and paramedics have been called out to dozens of violent incidents at North Richmond’s trouble-plagued injecting room. Picture: Jason Edwards

Police have been called out to dozens of violent incidents at North Richmond’s trouble-plagued injecting room.

Data obtained exclusively by the Herald Sun under Freedom of Information laws has revealed the true extent of violent incidents and medical episodes that police and paramedics have responded to at the site at 23 Lennox St, which is located next to Richmond West Primary School.

It comes after the Andrews government earlier this month announced that the Lennox St facility would remain a permanent fixture in the area despite desperate pleas from residents to house the service elsewhere.

The injecting room will remain a permanent fixture.

Some of the shocking incidents at and around the controversial facility since it opened in June 2018 to June 2022 include:

• One hundred and sixty two incidents of people causing trouble

• Eighty-three reports of assault

• Fifty-seven reports of street drugs on Lennox St

• Twenty suicide attempts

• Nine reports of gunshots and stabbings

• Ten overdoses

New Ambulance Victoria data also obtained under Freedom of Information laws shows call-outs for paramedics in 2017 to Lennox St – before the injecting room opened – was 61, compared to 123 in 2019 – a 101 per cent increase.

However, during Covid calls did decrease to 62 in 2020 and 69 in 2021.

A man openly injects drugs in North Richmond near the injecting room. Picture: Jason Edwards

Paramedics also responded to five deaths at Lennox St.

But in one positive trend, call-outs for Naloxone, which is used by paramedics to treat overdoses, also decreased from 37 in 2017 to 14 in 2021.

Victoria Police incident report data between January 2022 to April 2022, shows a litany of shocking incidents including police arresting an unlicensed driver outside the injecting room in March last year.

Documents show police found methamphetamine in the driver’s car and also noted they had committed an indictable offence while on bail.

Other incidents at the facility include a man alleging to be assaulted by a security guard and instances involving theft and drug use.

Longtime North Richmond resident Sharon Neven said she was furious by the number of “confronting” incidents nearby the injecting room.

“This data shows that our children are at risk, it’s unfair that they need to be subjected to seeing drug users overdose, it should not be next to a school,” Ms Neven said.

“If NSW has a law that there are not to be injecting rooms near primary schools, childcare or community centres, then our children deserve the same safety measures.”

Another Richmond resident told the Herald Sun: “Nobody in all good conscience could condone this location next to a primary school. Every excuse has been offered, and none pass the pub test.”

A Victoria Police spokesman said: “As per the latest independent crime statistics released last week, overall crime in the North Richmond area in 2022 was at its lowest level in at least five years.”

“This was highlighted by a 97.9 per cent decrease in criminal offending in the immediate vicinity of the Medically Supervised Injecting Room since 2020,” he said.

“Drug related offending was also at its lowest level in five years, with a 43.5 per cent decrease since 2020.

“Assaults, thefts and burglaries in the area were also at five year lows.”

A state government spokeswoman said the Richmond injecting room was saving lives and keeping people who use drugs safe from overdose and off the streets.

“The facility has managed more than 6000 overdoses inside the injecting room, and has saved more than 60 lives.”

But Opposition mental health spokeswoman Emma Kealy said: “Labor continue to ignore the harm to hundreds of primary school children, who are exposed to shocking drug-based crime and anti-social activity at their school gate.”