Boy, 3, dies in Hartford drive-by
Child was unintended victim hours before a second fatal shooting
HARTFORD — A 3-year-old boy was shot and killed Saturday afternoon in Hartford’s North End, an apparent unintended victim of a drive-by shooting during a frantic day filled with gunfire in the capital city.
A 17-year-old boy was fatally shot and another 17-year-old boy injured — just two hours later and less than a mile away — in what police believe was a separate incident as officers scrambled from scene to scene while more gunfire continued to ring out across the neighborhood.
Three-year-old Rondell Jones died at a hospital shortly after the first shooting, officials said. The 17-year-old who was killed was not identified publicly Saturday evening, pending notification of family.
Rondell had been in the car with his mother, another man and his 4- and 5-year-old siblings when a shooter in another vehicle opened fire on the family’s car, Mayor Luke Bronin said at a news conference after both incidents. No one else was hurt, but Rondell died at an area hospital a short time later.
“Our whole city’s heart breaks for this child and for his family,” Bronin said. “This is a crime that wounds a community, and we are grieving with the family of this little boy.
“For anyone with a heart, a soul, anyone who’s ever loved a child, this is a crime that is unfathomable and sickening. I am heartbroken, and I am angry. When you watch the video, it is difficult to believe that the shooter did not know who he was shooting at, and it is very difficult to believe he could not see children in that car . ... We will be pursuing the murder of this child with every resource that we have.”
Both police and city offi
cials pleaded with anyone who witnessed either incident to reach out to Hartford police with any information by calling the department tip line at 860-722-8477, where information can be submitted anonymously
“This is a time where I believe there’s a call to action,” Hartford City Councilman TJ Clarke said, “for anyone who has witnessed this heinous act to step up and please break the ‘street code’ by saying what they witnessed ... Our children should not walk in fear in our streets, being fearful of succumbing to a stray bullet that was not meant for them.”
The first shooting happened around 2:25 p.m. Saturday when police responded to a report of shots fired at 182 Nelson St., Lt. Aaron Boisvert and Chief Jason Thody said. While officers searched for a crime scene, they were alerted that an area hospital had just received a 3-year-old gunshot victim.
The boy, Rondell, was initially listed in critical condition but died soon after at the hospital.
Cameras linked to the police department’s Capital City Command Center captured the entire shooting, Thody said.
The video shows a black Honda Accord stop alongside another vehicle and a passenger in the Accord firing shots directly into the second car, Thody and Boisvert said.
Investigators believe a male passenger in the car with Rondell and his siblings was the intended target of that gunfire, and the video shows the car left the scene heading west on Nelson Street, police said. The apparent intended target of the shooting then ran from the car and has not been located since, Thody said Saturday evening.
The Honda Accord was located unoccupied about an hour later, and police confirmed it had been stolen from Windsor Locks, Thody said.
“This is a dark day in Hartford, a very, very, very dark day,” the Rev. Henry Brown said while police were at the scene. “It don’t make no sense. Kids are not safe. Nobody’s safe.”
Brown and Henrietta Beckman, leaders of Mothers United Against Violence, were at the corner of Garden and Enfield streets waiting for news about the child’s shooting when they heard what sounded like more than a dozen gunshots coming from another direction.
Officers then responded to 157 Magnolia St., less than a mile away from the first scene, at 4:45 p.m., police said. There officers found one 17-year-old with fatal gunshot wounds and a second 17-year-old boy who was also injured, but not by gunfire, police said.
Multiple firearms were recovered at the Magnolia Street scene, Boisvert said.
“It’s quite a crime scene. There were shell casings in the street, and we found the victim in the backyard,” Boisvert said.
Police were still looking for cameras and witnesses in the area of the second shooting Saturday afternoon, but officials indicated they do not believe the two shootings are linked.
“It’s always a possibility it’s connected with the earlier incident, but I don’t think at this point it was related,” Boisvert said.
The sound of the shots and sirens on Magnolia Street brought dozens of people out onto their porches and sidewalks.
Two women, roommates in an apartment that backs up to the crime scene, said it seemed like the shooting went on for several minutes.
One of the women, who declined to give her name, was getting dressed when the shots rang out. She tried to cover herself as she ran out of her room to make sure all their kids were safely inside.
They were, but as police descended on Magnolia Street, they all headed into their backyard to see what happened. They could see a victim on the ground behind another apartment building, and a first responder trying to resuscitate him, said the other woman, who only gave her first name, Melissa.
The kids, “they was crying cause they saw it. They saw that boy lying on the floor,” Melissa said. “Imagine the trauma they’re going through.
“They need to go around and find the people who have all these guns and just take them away.”
Her roommate said it’s not that simple.
“It’s easy to get a gun nowadays,” she said. “All you need is money.”
While talking with journalists at the Magnolia Street scene, Boisvert confirmed officers had received another report of shots fired on Mather Street when Boisvert and the reporters heard what they believed to be even more gunfire nearby.
It was not immediately clear how many incidents of gunshots police responded to Saturday, but Thody said there had been no other reports of injuries as of 7:30 p.m.
The capital city was gripped by a massive spike in shootings with injuries last fall that prompted Gov. Ned Lamont to send 15 additional state police personnel to help local detectives investigate the incidents and crack down on illegal weapon carrying across the city.
The amount of gunfire and injuries dropped closer to normal levels toward the end of 2020, and crime is down slightly in Hartford almost across the board through the first three months of 2021, police data show. The city has recorded just two more shootings with injuries this year than it did through the same period last year.
Hartford saw eight homicides through the first three months of 2020 and has now matched that number with the two deaths Saturday.
State police were already in Hartford again Saturday for a “pre-planned detail,” so they are assisting in both cases, Thody said.
“Our initiatives to combat violent crime as the weather [warms] have already been underway for quite some time now,” Thody said. “After we had a spike in violent crime in the fall last year, we initiated our efforts early this year.