This past Thursday afternoon a young mother and her 15-month-old son and myself went to Duchess Park, aka Pirate Park. The park was busy with families and children playing on the equipment. There was a group of teenagers playing on the equipment and yelling profanity and throwing garbage on the ground and one of the youth broke a glass bottle and left it under the equipment she was on.
My friend saw one of the female youth spray painting a piece of equipment. The female then started running, spraying her friends with the paint. I called the RCMP who arrived and confiscated the spray paint containers and left. One of the youth kicked a ball my way and missed hitting a toddler. I yelled at the youth to watch out for the young children and was told to mind my effin business.
The group all climbed up to the top of the pirate ship which has slides on it. My friend's toddler was knocked down by one of the youth as he was approaching a slide. The mother asked the group to watch out for young children playing as it was park for children and they were too big and too old to be playing on the equipment. She received a reply of, we are children and f off.
The group then started to kick through the opening at their friends and my friend's son was kicked in the head. He was scared and lucky it was just a brush of one of the youth's foot and not a direct kick as there would have been an injury. I noticed parents starting to leave and a lady said to her friend it's sad that the park had hoodlums wrecking it for families.
We left as the enjoyment of the park had ended for us and families. The park's equipment is more age appropriate I believe to 12-and-under children. The city is talking about a new park behind the Wood Innovation building and is worried about undesirables. Well, our neighbourhood parks are newest and are being marred by groups of unruly teenagers. I suggest the city have security to monitor the parks as families will not visit or enjoy the parks visited by youth whose goals seems to be to deface and wreck the parks, not enjoy them.
Melodie Woytowich
Prince George
