Video captures woman pushing child at Moncton skate park

A video posted on YouTube showing an elderly woman repeatedly shoving a child is raising questions about the MonctonDowntown Skateboard Park, and whether the site needs more supervision.

The video begins with a shot of the woman pushing the boy and telling him to "grow up."

The boy, who appears to laugh at the confrontation, eventually tells her to,"Shut the f--kup."

The video entitled, "ANGRY GRAMMA PUSH 11 YEARS OLD AT THE SKATEPARK!!"was posted on May 28and removed on May 31.

The person who posted the video declined to comment.

Phil Angers was one of two adults who can be seen intervening in the video, in an attempt to calm everyone involved.

"I showed up and I said, 'What's going on here,'" he said.

"The only thing I'm seeing is, you know, an older woman pushing a little kid at the park and that just doesn't seem right to me, whatsoever."

A regular at the park, Angers said it's the first time he's felt the need to intervene in any kind of incident while there.

Bad reputation

But other people in the skateboarding community aren't shocked by the video and say the Monctonskateboard park on Assomption Boulevard has a well-deserved bad reputation.

Caleb Gould, 14, is an avid skateboarder, but tries to steer clear of the Monctonskateboard park.

"There's always fights and stuff that go on in Moncton." said Gould, who finds the park too rough.

"There's always people wanting fights for attention or like they're on drugs or alcohol, they don't know what they're doing, it's always like they're going to go pick on someone."

He prefers the skate park at the Dieppe Youth House, which is fenced in, and only opened when supervised.

Jeannot Ouellette,the executive director at the Dieppe Youth House, said he used to take kids from his centre to the skate park in downtown Moncton, but stopped.

"We don't go to Moncton with tours and trips with kids because we ... didn't feel safe," he said.

"When we go to these parks, we're responsible for the kids that we bring there so we have to be careful as well."

The park appeared to be unsupervised at the time of the incident captured on video.

Supervision at park

However, a City of Moncton summer student will be hired to supervise the site throughout the summer, starting later this week.

Nadine Melanson-LeBlanc, an officialwith the parks and leisure department, said the city employs a student each year to supervise the park for set hours, five days a week.

Melanson-LeBlanc said the employee is always a skateboarder who uses the park, in order to ensure that the summer student "speaks the language" of the other park users.

A set of rules is posted at the park, though as of Monday, graffiti made parts of it hard to read.

While complaints do come in once in awhile according to Melanson-LeBlanc, she finds that once the summer student begins supervising the park, incidents usually stop.

Angers said hehopes the incident in the video doesn't turn kids or parents away from the sport.

"Skateboarding is not an easy thing to do, you're going to fail so many times and you have to get back up and try it again, that's a life lesson on its own."

The RCMP said it had not received any reports of the incident over the weekend.

Staff Sgt.Eric Larose said the park is patrolled on a regular basis and if any formal complaint is laid by anyone involved in the incident, the RCMP will investigate.