A 23-year-old Hartford woman and her friend are dead after being shot in what police are calling a drive-by shooting in the of Hartford.
The shooting happened right in front of the woman’s South End home on Tuesday morning, police said. The woman, Leida Franqui and a Hartford man in his 20s were thrown out of a car in the middle of Whitmore Street and then shot several times, police said. Police do not think this was a random crime.
Officers responded to the area of 51 Whitmore St. just before 2:15 a.m. after receiving multiple 911 calls for shots fired. One victim was in the street. The other was on the sidewalk.
Franqui’s mother and stepfather heard the shots.
“There were five, seven shots at 2 o'clock this morning. We opened the window. There I saw the car flip and me and my wife run to the steps. We go down there and we see her daughter dead," Franqui’s stepfather said.
Franqui’s friend, Jady Medina, wants justice and hopes people will cooperate with police.
"It shouldn't have happened, not to her because she doesn't do nothing. Not to her. That was a sweetheart. She was an angel. I love her to death," Medina said.
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Distraught family members surrounded Hartford detectives as they tried to collect evidence and process the scene. Franqui’s family described her as the angel on the block and tried to console one another, but couldn’t make sense of the brutal act of violence.
The chief of police, Daryl Roberts, said Franqui and the man were targeted and shot right in the middle of Whitmore Street, just four doors down from where Franqui lived. These are the third and fourth homicide in Hartford this month.
Roberts said he's frustrated by what's happening lately.
"I'm proud of the men and women in our department. All of a sudden, these last couple of weeks, appears to be an aberration and we want to get on top of it as soon as we can," he said.
Police recovered shotgun and 9 mm. casings, so they do believe there was more than one shooter. Police are investigating and searching for two male they believe are involved.
