‘Serial gun possessor’ denied bail after repeated firearm arrests in Hartford

A Hartford man authorities call a “serial gun possessor” — a suspect in a triple shooting and murder who has been repeatedly arrested on weapons charges and released — was denied bail and locked up as a threat to public safety Friday after the FBI and federal prosecutors took over his case.

Lamont Fields, 23, was convicted of a weapons charge in state court in 2017 and served nine months. He was convicted again of a weapons charge in 2018, while on probation, and was sentenced to two years. On March 24, still on probation, he was arrested in possession of a stolen, loaded pistol with an oversized, illegal magazine and released on $250,000 bond. He was arrested again on May 13, while on bond and still on probation, with another loaded gun with an oversized, illegal magazine and released again, on $50,000 bond.

After his last two arrests, Fields admitted to the Hartford police that the guns with which he was arrested were his.

The weapon involved in the May 13 arrest is what is known as a “ghost gun,” an illegal, unregistered weapon without a serial number and made from parts purchased across the internet.

A ballistics test on the ghost gun revealed it is likely the weapon used in a May 4 shooting on Norwich Street near Colt Park in Hartford that left one man dead and two seriously injured. Federal prosecutor Robert S. Ruff said in court Friday that Hartford detectives consider Fields the prime suspect in the shootings.

Fields was in U.S. District Court in Hartford on Friday after yet another arrest by Hartford detectives, who found him in a car near South Park with a man who was carrying a gun. When Fields refused to get out of he car he was charged with resisting arrest. The armed man fled but was caught.

After the arrest, Hartford detectives transferred Fields to agents, who took him into custody after federal prosecutors indicted him on federal weapons charges. He pleaded not guilty.

Fields complained to U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Farrish during his bond hearing Friday that one of the arresting officers hit him in the head with a pair of handcuffs. Farrish ordered him held without bond anyway, which provoked Fields to complain that he ought to get some consideration for having a job since his May arrest.

Ruff argued that Fields is part of the reason that a spike in shootings has Hartford on track to one of the most violent years in its history. There have been more than 100 shootings so far and 21 murders. Last year, he said there were 25 murders in Hartford over the entire year.

“Every time he has encountered law enforcement in the last six months he has had a gun or been near one,” Ruff said in court. “He is essentially a serial possessor of firearms, and I think it is fair to say a likely shooter of those firearms.”

Federal public defender Lilly Odongo tried to persuade Farrish that Fields could be kept away from guns while awaiting trial if he is released on bond to the custody or his wife and other relatives and required to submit to electronic monitoring.

His wife, Tamijah Hunter, is facing a prison sentence herself after her arrest with six other Hartford women, accused of concocting a scheme in which more than $100,000 was stolen from high-end retailer Victoria’s Secret.