State police troopers will be coming into Hartford to help police there deal with a recent increase in gun violence.
Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin requested the assistance from state police, according to Gov. Ned Lamont.
The city has seen a number of shootings since the beginning of October.
Bronin said this is a specific, targeted partnership, and state police personnel will not be conducting routine patrols of Hartford Streets.
"You're not going to see state police out there patrolling the city of Hartford. This is a very limited, targeted, focused, and deliberate partnership to strengthen our efforts as we work specifically to fight gun violence and reduce the amount of shooting activity we have seen," Bronin explained.
State police will provide added resources to the Hartford Police Department that will include embedding State Police Major Crime Detectives into the Hartford Police Department Violent Crimes Task Force. The Statewide Narcotics Task Force will also focus on Hartford, working to seize illegal and stolen guns, according to the governor's office.
City residents will also see uniformed troopers assigned to state on-ramps and off-ramps from the highways through Hartford.
“As we fight back against an unusually sharp spike in gun violence, we’re dedicating every resource we have in a focused, deliberate way, and I’m grateful to Governor Lamont, Commissioner Rovella, the Connecticut State Police and the Department of Correction for acting quickly to work in partnership with us,” Bronin said. “It’s important to be clear that this is not a broad deployment of State Police to patrol Hartford, but a carefully targeted assignment of investigative and other specialized resources as part of a state, local, and federal partnership to directly address the drivers of this spike in gun violence. We also believe that the increased parole supervision by DOC is an important part of the response, and appreciate DOC taking that action.”
The Hartford Police Department said they've had 63 more shooting incidents compared to this time last year - a 54% increase. And in the last 28-day period, they've seen an additional shootings compared to the 28 days before.
Bronin said the have seen gun violence connected to auto thefts, and hopes that targeted enforcement on highways and highway ramps may help identity stolen vehicles and prevent an escalation to gun crime.
The mayor also made a request to the state Department of Correction to increase in-person supervision of parolees in the city.
He noted that the recent $1 million cut to the Hartford Police Department budget has not affected staffing in the city.
"We have more officers out there today than at any point in the last six years," Bronin said.
The city is hosting a virtual town hall on public safety at 11 a.m. Saturday. To call in using Zoom, click here. The event will also be streamed on Facebook live here.
