An area near an East Harlem fire station has been turned into a nightmarish playground for exhausted drug addicts, with firefighters using spaces between parked cars as cubicles for pooping and shooting. There is.
Addicts “break into cars, defecate on them, leave trash…you can see needles on the ground, anywhere at any time,” Battalion Chief Burgess said at the Third Precinct near East 124th Street. he told The Post outside Ladder 14 Fire Station Engine 35 in the city.
“These people are so far removed from their addiction that you can’t help but feel sorry for them, but when they defecate on your car, like what happened to me last week, you feel that anger. ” the chief said indignantly.
These problems occur “every day, multiple times a day,” he said.
Firefighters say drug addicts sometimes become aggressive when smoke eaters beg them to move to get into cars parked diagonally on Third Avenue.
“Sometimes they stand up and move peacefully, and other times they stand up shaking. We don’t know,” the firefighter said.
“We say, ‘Hey, really?’ . . . There’s nothing else we can do. We just deal with it,” he continued.
amazing thing Instagram video from March 17th “Fire station parking lot turned into drug den,” the caption reads, showing three clearly addicted people sitting on the curb between firefighters’ cars.
“Cracks? Is this guy doing heroin?” the person filming can be heard saying as he walks behind each man, two of whom appear to be handling needles.
The fire station is just a few blocks from OnPoint New York City, a so-called safe injection site that critics say enables and attracts addicts to the neighborhood.
“we say [OnPoint]”Hey, you know, [the drug users] “Come here,” I thought, but the sound wouldn’t stop,” the firefighter lamented.
Firefighters said paramedics were picking up unconscious drug addicts from the block “all the time.” “It’s out of control around here.”
Uniformed Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro called the situation “disgraceful.”
“Firehouses are supposed to be a place of rest for firefighters, but now they have to be on their toes.” [and worry] “You’re going to get robbed while you’re not driving, you’re going to step on needles and human waste when you go to your car,” he fumed.
“We don’t need our FDNY to deal with this,” agreed Xavier Santiago, chairman of Community Board 11, which encompasses East Harlem.
“We should be able to build a team that can guide these people to recovery,” Santiago said.
An FDNY spokesperson told the Post that the fire department’s leadership recently became aware of a complaint from an East Harlem firefighter involving an area outside the fire station, and that “we immediately alerted our law enforcement partners. We will cooperate with you as we investigate these concerns,” the company said in a statement to the Post. ”
