Parents Shocked After 2 Children Are Poked With Syringe At Newark Daycare

NEWARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- Two children were poked with a syringe at a Newark daycare recently, and police said it was another child who found the needle on the playground.

As CBS2's Jessica Moore reported, CBS2 on Monday broke the news about the incident to Newark mother Skylar Davies. Her 3- and 4-year-olds go to the daycare on Elizabeth Avenue.

"They found a needle there -- at my kids school?" Davies said. "Wow, that's terrible, and I knew nothing about that."

Davies said the daycare never told her about the incident.

"Now that I they told me, I find that very alarming," she said. "That's ridiculous."

On Thursday afternoon, an ambulance picked up two young children from the daycare center after police said a 5-year-old fond the syringe on the playground and poked them with it.

The daycare sits on the other side of a 24-hour Quick & Fresh store, and neighbor said it is pretty common to see drug users up and down the street any time of the day or night.

"You got the homeless out here. You've got people out there sleeping. There's a lot of people that'd be probably shooting up over there," said a neighbor named Dwaine.

"You can look at the floors and you can see the crack bottles and all that stuff all over the floors," said Newark resident Ray Gonzalez.

Parents said the daycare is telling them the needle was found outside a fence lining the playground, and the 5-year-old reached through and picked it up.

CBS2 tried to talk to someone at the daycare, but Moore and her team were promptly told to get off the property.

Davies, however, was not leaving without an explanation. She told CBS2 what a daycare staffer told her.

"She explained their procedures and how they check everything -- the playgrounds and things of that nature, you know -- and I'm OK with that as long as you did your job," Davies said.

Police told CBS2 the two kids who were poked were taken to the University Hospital trauma center where they were treated and released. A source said the needle tested clean.

The daycare center scheduled a meeting for Tuesday night to talk to parents about what happened.