Victoria woman finds syringe police believe was 'deliberately placed' in planter box

Victoria police are warning people to be cautious after a woman came across a syringe they believe was deliberately placed in a planter box.

Police say the woman called them Monday morning after finding the syringe in a planter box in the 700 block of Johnson Street, in Victoria's downtown.

She said it was placed in the box with the needle portion pointing straight up.

"The way it was placed would make [us] believe that it was placed there deliberately," VicPD spokesperson Const. Matt Rutherford said in an email.

It's not the woman's first encounter with syringes, police say.

She told police she had actually been pricked last week by another syringe in a different planter box in the area.

Police say she was gardening at the time and sought medical attention.

Last Tuesday, police issued a similar warning after a three-year-old child was pricked by an uncapped syringe.

Police said that incident, which occurred in a business in the 900-block of Pandora Avenue, is being treated as a "suspicious circumstance."

Rutherford says there's no indication that incident is related to the two syringes found by the woman on Johnson Street.

He says there has been an uptick in syringe incidents reported to police, but it's not clear if there are, in fact, more incidents occurring or if more are simply being reported.