Two junkies were caught by a Post photographer openly preparing to inject drugs in a syringe-littered Bronx park Tuesday — leaving the borough’s parks chief stunned speechless when she saw the picture.
The gaunt young men shot up in broad daylight while sitting under a tree in St. Mary’s Park, which is across the street from an elementary school and one of 16 parks slated to get official syringe-disposal boxes from Mayor de Blasio’s administration.Other vagrants were passed out nearby, including one sprawled face-up on the ground just feet from the bright-orange safety caps from a used syringe.
Bronx Parks Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa was flabbergasted when shown the photos after a news conference at which she touted the city’s syringe-collection plan.
“It’s sad. It’s, uh . . .” she said before pausing to collect her thoughts.
“Many of us have friends or relations or people that we know who have been afflicted by this, so to see something like this it just makes me sad. I don’t know what else. I’m at a loss for words,” she said.
As Rodriguez-Rosa spoke, a derelict was urinating against a fence about 30 feet behind her in the northwest corner of the park.
On Monday, the city announced it would install 60 “safe disposal units” for used syringes in St. Mary’s and 15 other Bronx parks, based in part on a finding that workers have been picking up nearly 5,000 used needles across the borough every week.
The Post on Tuesday found used syringes littering St. Mary’s, a 26-acre spread in the South Bronx the Parks Department’s Web site calls “an oasis of fun and relaxation in a busy area.”
Other drug-related trash included an empty, flattened box of 100 “Easy Touch” insulin syringes and empty, blue-plastic vials of sterile water for injections.
South Bronx resident Clinton Ingram, who was pushing his 2-year-old son in a stroller on a sidewalk alongside the park Tuesday, called the city’s syringe-collection plan “stupid.”
“What are they going to do with the people who overdose and they’re lying there next to the disposal [box] because they didn’t make it?” said Ingram, 47, a construction worker.
Ingram’s wife, homemaker Cindy Ingram, 31, said she never lets their son, Alexzander, play on the grass in the park for fear he might get stuck by a used needle.
Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates said the city’s plan showed that officials “are accepting that our parks have turned into shooting galleries.”
The city’s announcement followed the 2016 installation of a syringe-collection container at the Haven Park Underpass in upper Manhattan by the nonprofit Washington Heights CORNER Project.
The Post on Tuesday found about a dozen used syringes — with needles still on about half — on the steps to the underpass, along with empty plastic zipper bags and water vials.
Joe Puleo, president of the Parks Enforcement Patrol officers union, said that under the de Blasio administration, workers have “been discouraged from going after users.”
“Twenty years ago, we had zero tolerance,” Puleo said. “ Now it’s gotten to the point of see no evil, hear no evil.”
The Parks Department said PEP officers can issue summonses or make arrests at their discretion and are encouraged to contact the NYPD if they see drug use in the parks.
Additional reporting by Yoav Gonen and Tina Moore