State to help halt summertime crime spike

Governor announces more patrols to combat gun violence in Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport

MIDDLETOWN– The state is providing additional resources to help Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport address what officials called a summertime spike in gun violence.

Gov. Ned Lamont announced the initiative at a news conference Tuesday at state police headquarters in Middletown. He was joined by top state and local police officials.

“As a governor, my responsibility is to get the best people I can and give them the support they need, and that’s what I’ve tried to do here,” Lamont said.

The short-term assistance includes bolstering patrols to help the understaffed urban police departments as well as expedited ballistics analysis from the Connecticut state police scientific services laboratory in Meriden. Officials said the additional aid will cost $25,000 for each of the three cities.

“We’re not into this to arrest full street corners or to increase arrests,” said James Rovella, commissioner of the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and a former Hartford police chief. “We’re in this for prevention … for visibility and increased level of investigative services. … We’re interested in … those folks carrying the guns.”

But, Rovella added, “let’s be realistic here. Some people are going to go to jail, no doubt about it. … We’re going to slow down this violence. It is a public health epidemic, the shooting of our young people in these cities.”

Hartford has seen an increase in gun violence in recent weeks, including a nonfatal shooting on Meadow Street just two hours before the governor’s news conference. A fatal shooting on July 12 was the 15th homicide in the city this year, shortly before a stabbing last week became the 16th. Hartford had a total of 21 homicides in 2018.

Bridgeport has had 11 homicides so far this year, the same number as the city had in all of 2018, according to an analysis by Hearst Connecticut Media.

In New Haven, there have been five homicides this year, as of June 23, two fewer than over a similar period in 2018. But the number of gunshots fired has increased, according to the New Haven Independent.

While each of the three cities is coping with gun violence, their needs are different. Hartford requested two detectives to be embedded in the city’s violence reduction team. Also, a Hartford officer assigned to the Statewide Narcotics Task Force will be temporarily dispatched back to the city.

In Bridgeport, the state police will deploy two uniformed troopers to walk a beat in higher-crime neighborhoods. And New Haven will get help from a state police detective who will be assigned to violence reduction.

“Yes, we’ve had a spike in New Haven, a lot of it related to group-on-group violence,” said New Haven Police Chief Otoniel Reyes. The assistance from the state “goes a long way,” he added.

Rovello said his staff will also reach out to municipal public safety officials in other large cities, such as Stamford and Waterbury, as well as smaller communities such as New London, Windham, Hamden and Meriden, to see if they also need assistance.

“The three biggest cities were the priority initially because of the spike in crime,” Rovello said. “This is more of a holistic approach.”