Hospitalizations and deaths
East Hartford chief to grieving friend after hit-and-run: ‘The system failed you’
The rising rate of COVID-19 cases in Connecticut in recent weeks has also corresponded with an increase in hospitalizations and deaths. Connecticut reported 25 people hospitalized with the virus on July 9; about three weeks later, that number has risen to 112. Deaths due to COVID-19 also have ticked up slightly.
EAST HARTFORD — Wearing a red sash to honor her dead friend, Anna Dubiel asked through tears at a public safety forum in East Hartford Wednesday night why Henryk Gudelski had to perish at the hands of a teenager who police say had been arrested 13 times in the past 3 ½ years.
The meeting at East Hartford Middle School was called to discuss the ongoing surge in stolen cars and related crimes that has hit the Hartford region particularly hard.
Walking over to Dubiel as she waited for a reply, East Hartford Police Chief Scott Sansom said, “Because the system failed you.” Sansom then hugged the sobbing woman.
Gudelski’s death in New Britain on June 29 has become a focal point for an uprising of angry citizens who say they are tired of being victimized and scared. Raucous at times, the East Hartford gathering of about 60 area residents and municipal and state officials followed a similar packed meeting in Glastonbury last week.
After the hit-and-run death in New Britain, a thief shot at a Glastonbury woman who confronted him trying to break into her vehicle and a 16-year-old was arrested after police said he stole a car in West Hartford with a 2-year-old inside. On Sunday, a Hartford man was shot and wounded when he confronted a thief breaking into his vehicle. Police arrested three young men Tuesday after the car crashed in flames in West Hartford.
Sansom and other law enforcement leaders say the crime wave is the work of a small group of repeat offenders. New Britain Police Chief Christopher Chute said recently that nine juveniles in the city have been arrested an average of 18 times between the ages of 12 and 17. One has been arrested 40 times since the age of 12, including stolen motor vehicle, assaults on police, burglary, and robbery with a firearm, the chief said.
“The juvenile justice system has failed these offenders,” Chute said. “The current system did not protect the public from their illegal behavior.”
“Short-term,” Sansom told the East Hartford audience, “we have to get these kids off the streets. We’re not talking about the kids who make mistakes.”
In the face of the public outcry, legislative leaders have formed a bipartisan working group to address the problem and are expected to come back with recommendations. Police chiefs also have been meeting and discussing a new regional task force on auto theft and gun violence.
State legislators were in the hot seat at the East Hartford meeting as speakers called for tougher laws, including longer detention of juvenile suspects and wider access to teen criminals’ records, including by juvenile court judges.
Displaying a poster board showing a triangle with different levels of preventive actions, Sen. Saud Anwar, a Democrat from South Windsor, said the approach must be comprehensive.
Text at the bottom of the triangle said, “Address inequities in housing, education, unemployment — fund mental health support services.” The illustration rose in urgency to “targeting risk factors and high risk groups for investment,” then to “strengthening and ease of entry into juvenile diversion programs for oppositional, defiant or conduct disorder type behavior.” The top of the triangle, colored red, called in part for judges to have access to suspects’ records.
“As a doctor, if I don’t have access to medical records, I’m going to make a mistake,” Anwar, a pulmonary disease specialist, said.
He also said the legislature must address the issue of longer detentions for some suspects. A message must be sent that the full force of the law will be applied, Anwar said.
But some in the audience scoffed, saying legislators have done nothing to solve the problem. Stephan Maksymiuk of Glastonbury, a member of the new group, Safestreets CT, said repeat offenders face no consequences.
“Our legislature is not doing the job,” Maksymiuk said.
An analysis of police data statewide showed that the number of car thefts actually dropped sharply over the last 30 years, to a historic low in 2019, before rising last year. According to preliminary data that won’t be finalized until the fall, 2020 saw a 19.5% jump in car thefts over the average of the past five years. Those numbers closely reflect national trends during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Ken Barone, project manager for the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy at Central Connecticut State University.
But municipal police leaders say the surge in auto-related crimes continues this year. In Manchester, 114 motor vehicle thefts in 2019 increased to 174 in 2020, and as of July 1 of this year, there’s already been 101, according to Manchester Police Captain Anthony Palombizio, who shared the numbers at the Glastonbury forum. He added that two years ago there were only three incidents of shots fired and as of July 1 of this year, that number had increased to 13.
Republican lawmakers have called for multiple proposals, including increasing criteria to allow a judge to declare that a juvenile poses a risk to public safety after a second crime instead of a third; eliminating the current six-hour limit that a juvenile can be held without a court order; ordering
that juveniles charged with a
second car theft must wear a GPS monitoring device; and changing the pursuit policy to allow police officers to chase car theft suspects under certain circumstances.
While acknowledging the need for action, including giving judges greater access to records, House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, a Democrat representing East
Harford and Manchester, told the East Hartford audience that misinformation about juvenile crime also is being circulated. There is no
connection, for instance, between the current crime wave and “Raise the Age” laws that added 16- and 17-year-old teens arrested to the juvenile court system, Rojas said.
He also pointed to statistics on the East Hartford police website — bit.ly/3j2ofte — that show an overall decrease in crime over the past five years.
But Sansom said the ongoing car thefts, car burglaries and related crimes cannot be allowed to continue. He and other police chiefs are working with each other and government leaders on solutions to quell the wave, the chief said.
“Your voice is being heard,” Sansom said. “What we’re doing
now is not working.”