Hartford Police Seek to Quell Gang Outbreak

Police blanketed the city’s North End neighborhood Wednesday in an effort to stifle gang warfare after automatic weapon fire killed a gang member, authorities said.

Police were stopping cars and asking pedestrians their business, while other officers were staking out apartment complexes.

Since Sunday, seven people have been shot in a spree of violence that has swept across the state capital.

Authorities thought they had quelled Hartford’s budding gang rivalries late last summer by dispatching dozens of state and local police officers through the city’s lower-income neighborhoods.

But shortly after police scaled back their effort last week, a gang truce apparently ended when a gang member was wounded Sunday night in a shooting on an interstate highway just outside the city.

Six people were hurt Monday in a series of drive-by shootings, with some of the targets apparently picked at random.

North End residents reported that shots ripped through their apartment windows and punctured walls for several seconds Tuesday morning.

Police returned to the streets in force Wednesday after the shooting death Tuesday of Ferdinand Robles, a 23-year-old suspected gang member.

Robles was standing near a school, two hours after classes ended, when he was shot several times in the chest, police said. He became Hartford’s 26th murder victim this year.

John Bailey, Connecticut’s chief state’s attorney, said despite claims by gang members that a truce was in effect, “I think it’s apparent to anyone there’s no truce.”

Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., in remarks at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new state police barracks, said he may propose a statewide ban on the private ownership of all easily concealable firearms.

Weicker, who earlier this month announced that he will not seek reelection, conceded that such a proposal would have little chance of passage in the state Legislature.

He also said the state does not have the money to maintain the saturation level of police activity that slowed gang violence last summer in the operation dubbed “Operation Liberty.”

“I don’t have enough money or enough state troopers to conduct Operation Liberties around the state of Connecticut,” he said.