‘Threatening to kill’: Public injecting, assaults and home invasions in Melbourne’s ‘drug Disneyland’

Addicts shooting up in the street, daily assaults and home invasions. This is the reality of life in Melbourne’s “drug Disneyland”. Warning: GRAPHIC

EXCLUSIVE

A North Richmond resident has documented the daily reality of living near Melbourne’s controversial “safe” injecting room, where addicts are regularly seen shooting up on the street and erratic drug users assault and terrorise locals.

In one video, a man with a needle is seen staggering around on the footpath in front of pedestrians before pulling down his pants, exposing his penis as he appears to inject into his groin.

Another shows drug users, one with his pants pulled down, shooting up in front of a graffiti-covered derelict home.

In a third clip, police are seen responding to an incident near the Lennox Street injecting room.

“Victoria Street and Lennox Street, one male has a knife and has been threatening to kill people,” an officer is heard saying over the police radio.

The long-time resident, who lives just a few hundred metres away from the medically supervised injecting room (MSIR), said such incidents were a daily occurrence and were “getting worse”.

An addict is seen shooting up on the street in North Richmond. Picture: news.com.au

“There are 15,000-plus residents in the North Richmond area that have to deal with this stuff every day,” said the man, who did not want to be identified.

“It’s just constant — you name it, it’s happened.”

The man said many locals were scared of speaking out due to the strong criminal presence brought into the area by the open-air drug trade.

“A lot of crime gets attracted here,” he said.

“There’s open dealing in the street. Cars get dumped, cars with no number plates. A neighbour had their door bashed in in broad daylight. Cars out the front are constantly getting broken into. Mail theft is rife. Crazy people in the middle of the night dancing naked in the street. We actually had someone with machetes run through our house. Kids are assaulted walking to school. There’s prostitution out the [back alley], people injecting.”

The suburb has turned into ‘Disneyland for drug users’. Picture: news.com.au

The once-cherished suburb has been branded a “ghetto” and a “Disneyland for drug users” by City of Yarra Mayor Stephen Jolly, who has pleaded for the state government to step in and stop “gaslighting” residents about the deteriorating conditions.

North Richmond, which has a high density of social housing, has long had drug problems — but the opening of the injecting room has turned the suburb into a mecca for addicts from all over the city.

“You can get there by train or tram, there’s plenty of people that will sell you the drugs, there’s plenty of nice houses in Abbotsford and North Richmond you can rob to get the money for the drugs, and there’s even a supervised injecting facility that you can shoot up in,” Cr Jolly told 3AW on Thursday.

Cars are regularly smashed up. Picture: news.com.au

“It’s just disastrous for the locals. Imagine living next door to the only pub in Melbourne. You’d have every alcoholic parked out the front.”

Last week it was revealed that one of the government’s own agencies, the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (VGCCC), was abandoning its Shelley Street office and relocating to the CBD when its lease runs out in August due to the “ongoing safety situation”, including a rise in anti-Semitic graffiti and assaults on staff.

The VGCCC office is just metres away from where the man was filmed injecting into his groin.

“Feedback from staff (including our most recent People Matter survey) reflects growing fear of personal safety while at work and when travelling to and from the office,” VGCCC chief executive Annette Kimmitt said in a letter obtained by the Herald Sun.

Crime in Richmond was up 25 per cent in 2024. Picture: news.com.au

“There has been an increased demand for support services including situational awareness training and on-site rapid response counselling support for staff feeling increasingly unsafe.”

The VGCCC employs around 200 people with the large workforce “making a significant contribution to the area’s economic and social wellbeing”, but Ms Kimmitt said security in the area was “an ongoing, indeed escalating, concern”.

“We continue to witness and experience other anti-social and criminal activity, including drug and alcohol-related violence, drug dealing and other intimidating behaviour,” she said.

“Colleagues have witnessed the brazen exchange of cash for drugs, people injecting drugs near the building and subsequently large numbers of dangerously discarded syringes. Anti-Semitic material often takes the form of graffiti, poster and stickers on council assets such as rubbish bins and street poles. It is offensive, and it causes unnecessary distressed to my valued members of staff. Together with other safety concerns in the area, these incidents have created an untenable working experience for our people.”

Public drug use is rife. Picture: news.com.au

She added that “many staff feel unsafe walking alone, even in daylight hours and now avoid going out during their breaks”.

“Those that do venture out travel in groups and report a higher level of anxiety and fear in anticipation of what they may confront outside our office doors,” she said.

“Several violent and distressing incidents have also been experienced by staff including physical assault, verbal abuse and racial epithets.”

She warned that “our relocation will impact the many hardworking small businesses, particularly the food outlets that rely on our foot traffic”.

The VGCCC declined to comment on the letter.

North Richmond’s medically supervised injecting room (MSIR) on Lennox Street was opened by the Andrews government in 2019 and has been blamed for bringing a shocking wave of crime and disorder to the area.

Needles and trash are strewn around the streets. Picture: news.com.au

The City of Yarra saw a total increase in criminal incidents of 21.4 per cent in 2024, according to data from Victoria’s Crime Statistics Agency, led by a 25 per cent increase in Richmond which recorded 3343 incidents.

Yarra’s crime rate of 11,884 incidents per 100,000 population was nearly double the Victorian average of 6195.

Richmond saw a 16 per cent increase in assaults (416) and 37 per cent increase in property offences (2447) in 2024, however there was a 16 per cent drop in drug offences recorded (130).

“For [the injecting room] to work you have to have a ‘softly softly’ police presence,” the resident said.

“[The police deny it but] you can’t have someone arresting people at the door.”

A Victorian government spokesman said in a statement on Thursday that more than $14 million had been invested “to boost security and make North Richmond safer for everyone”.

The supervised injecting room is next to a primary school. Picture: Supplied

“This includes capital works, additional security cameras, strengthened co-ordination with Victoria Police, and expanded outreach services to reduce public injecting, prevent overdoses, and connect people to support sooner,” he said.

The Allan government last year scrapped plans for a second injecting room after it was unable to find a location in the CBD.

Cr Jolly, a long-time councillor who was elected as Mayor in November, hit back at the Victorian government’s claimed safety investment.

“Whatever they’ve done it’s not enough, clearly,” he said.

“They’ve gaslit the residents. They themselves are part of the problem. They literally pulled out one of their own agencies. They’ve reduced the hours of the nearest police station in Collingwood. We only have one supervised injecting facility in the whole friggin’ state and they put it in Richmond next to a primary school. This is a crisis, it’s a ghetto in the making.”

The VGCCC’s exit follows scores of businesses fleeing the area, with the number of restaurants on Victoria Street halving from around 60 to 30 in recent years.

“We’ve seen in other cities like San Francisco, once urban decline gets to a certain point it’s really hard to rein in,” Cr Jolly said.

The North Richmond local agreed, “A lot of residents just give up and leave. Good people leave, bad people stay and it just spirals downwards.”

City of Yarra Mayor Stephen Jolly and Deputy Mayor Sarah McKenzie. Picture: Mark Stewart

Cr Jolly stressed that he supported supervised injecting facilities and harm minimisation strategies, but that North Richmond was a “crazy spot” and did not have adequate “wraparound services” like housing and mental health.

“It’s led to a hardening of attitudes,” he said.

“Until recently the vast majority of locals were saying we support [the injecting room], but now thanks to the ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ position of the state government, more people are agreeing with the Liberals that we just need to close it down.”

Speaking to reporters in April, Premier Jacinta Allan said drug users and their families did not deserve to be stigmatised for health issues, noting 230 Victorians died from a heroin overdose in 2022.

“People living and struggling with addiction deserve the very best care and the best chance,” she said.

The injecting room has ‘destroyed the community’. Picture: Supplied

Since its establishment, the North Richmond MSIR has safely managed more than 9000 overdoses and saved at least 63 lives, according to the government.

The North Richmond resident disputed those numbers as “ridiculous and based on a model”.

“You can’t get to the source data,” he said.

“The numbers are not verifiable and dubious at best. They keep quoting the 63 lives. Every day about 350 people go through the injecting room. Wastewater data of heroin usage in Melbourne [shows] 35,000 doses of heroin [per day], so 99 per cent [of heroin usage] happens outside.”

Cr Jolly said the “unholy coalition” of the state government, the Greens and the public health bureaucracy “think the people who live in North Richmond are deplorables, to quote Hillary Clinton”.

‘You become so immune to the human tragedy.’ Picture: news.com.au

“It’s this idea that they know best, that the locals are just deplorable, right-wing NIMBYs,” he said.

“It’s not true. The vast majority of people who live in that area are very compassionate. But by just ignoring their reasonable requests — can we get better lighting, can we get rid of the tagging, can we get support for these people so they’re not terrorising our kids — people have got no choice but to become increasingly militant. I’m trying to wake up the government.”

The North Richmond resident said he also had “compassion fatigue” and simply wanted the injecting room closed down.

“It’s really sad because you become so immune to the human tragedy,” he said.

“You get criticised for highlighting these problems — it’s seen as if you are picking on vulnerable people and stigmatising them. It’s an unpopular statement to say you want the injecting room closed, but the model doesn’t work. It started with good intentions but the law of unintended consequences has destroyed the community in the process. It attracts all the bad activity into one area.”

He argued “you should either have none or 100”.

Alternatively, he suggested, it should be moved to Toorak.

Originally published as ‘Threatening to kill’: Public injecting, assaults and home invasions in Melbourne’s ‘drug Disneyland’