BATON ROUGE - Despite a sign prohibiting drugs and alcohol at BREC parks, on Tuesday, needles, syringe caps and melted plastic bottles littered the lawn and playground around Boulevard de Province Park.

WBRZ learned of the possible open drug use at the park after a viewer reached out, sharing a photo of a park table with a message scribbled on it, stating, "Do your drugs at the back table. [Respect] the kids."

BREC Superintendent Brooks Williams provided a statement to WBRZ, calling the materials found in the park "concerning," and saying that BREC would be "taking appropriate steps at that location."

"Our responsibility is to provide parks and public spaces where families, children, neighbors, and visitors feel safe and welcome," the statement read in part.

Williams said the agency is looking at ways to ensure people use the parks for their intended purposes; those measures include more camera coverage, technology, efforts with law enforcement and more effective use of BREC staffing.

"Our parks are also closed from dusk until dawn, and we will continue working with our law enforcement partners to address trespassing and illegal activity on BREC property," Williams' statement added. "The strongest parks are the ones neighbors take pride in, look after, and refuse to surrender to those who would damage, misuse, or diminish them."

According to its website, since 2025, Recreation and Park Commission for the Parish of East Baton Rouge, or BREC, has implemented new safety measures, including a 24/7 security operations center to monitor park surveillance cameras. As previously reported in March, the new surveillance system features more than 1,500 cameras, as well as artificial intelligence to alert those in the operations center of people or objects in the park.

BREC Information Systems Director Steven Knight told BREC commissioners back in January that the system would be operated by former law enforcement officers.

"They're going to provide the standard operating procedures of how you mitigate certain incidents and things like that," Knight told commissioners in January.

BREC officials have not shared an exact date on when the entire security system will go live or if it is already in use.

Behavioral experts told WBRZ that people who go to parks to use substances often do so because those people have nowhere else to go.

"It's a public place where anyone can just go there and sit there and hang out. There's been times where we see cars just sit there for hours," Impact Group Behavioural Health Services Director of Operations Rod Royal said.

Impact Group Behavioural Health Services is a substance use treatment center that works with as many as 1,100 individuals each year. Royal said that recently the center is seeing younger and younger patients.

"It can start anywhere from 8 to 18 years old," he said.

The center works with organizations like the Set Free Indeed Intentional Prevention Program which aims to reduce the number of middle, high school and college students choosing to use substances. The organization assists youth with getting treatment if needed. Royal said, helping people find treatment requires a community effort.

"Call out to different resources, reach out to law enforcement, try to get that individual help, try to get that person to a situation where they can receive help, and just work as a team together," Royal said.