Hartford stunned by callous response to crimes

Officials, activists question moral core

HARTFORD - Last week began with violence in the shadows of the state Capitol, where a former deputy mayor was attacked shortly after 9 a.m. Monday by several youths.

On Wednesday, police found the decomposing body of a man in the basement of a foreclosed house. And later that day, an uneasy city was forced to confront an image that many still can't shake: Furious police officials released a security video of an elderly man struck by a hit-and-run driver as he was trying to cross the street, then ignored by passing motorists as he lay on the pavement.

The events left Mayor Eddie A. Perez rushing for the local airwaves, reminding people that "we have made the city safer over the past few years" and calling for unity. Officials pointed to the fact that four 911 calls were made within a minute of the hit-and-run, proof that Hartford residents aren't as callous as the video might make it seem.

Still, Perez was forced to acknowledge that "these terrible acts have harmed our community and show we have a long way to go." And some activists and other politicians insist that the incidents are symptoms of a city not only with a major crime problem, but one that is decaying at its moral core.

As the security video was played again and again on television, the 78-year-old victim, Angel Arce Torres, lay in Hartford Hospital, paralyzed from the neck down. In the same hospital, the 71-year-old former deputy mayor, Nicholas Carbone, was upgraded to fair.

According to several residents of the Park Street neighborhood where Torres was run down, fears that gang members were involved, as well as a desire to avoid any entanglement with police, may have played a role in bystanders' initial reluctance to go to his aid.

"Oh yeah, people were afraid," said Higinio Negron as he stood outside Danny's Grocery on Park Street opposite the spot where Torres was hit. But Negron, a resident of the neighborhood, said he doesn't believe that the way in which onlookers hesitated to help Torres was unique to Hartford. "No, no - everywhere is the same," he said.

"A lot of people here, if they see something wrong, they look the other way," said Curtiss Baldwin, an employee of Brother's Barber Shop, just up the street from the site of the accident.

"Me, I stay in the house at night, watch a lot of movies," said Baldwin, 25, a resident of Hartford's West End. "To tell the truth, there's nothing but trouble out here on the street. No one cares any more."

Steven Harris, a 61-year-old community activist and lifelong Hartford resident, said he's fed up with the mayor's efforts to emphasize statistics showing that crime in Hartford has dropped in recent years. While the overall crime rate in Hartford has dropped 15.5 percent in a year, homicides have nearly doubled in the past few years, from 17 in 2004 to 32 last year. The city has a population of 124,000.

"Right now, I'm just ashamed of my city," said Harris. "I think this is going to be the straw that broke the camel's back."

"They call Hartford 'New England's Rising Star,' " Harris said of a promotional slogan. "Most people I know call it the 'Shooting Star.' "

Marie Kirkley-Bey is a Hartford state representative and the first black woman to become a deputy speaker of Connecticut's House. "I think there's a sense of shame, but the sense of fear outweighs it," she said of the Torres incident.

"I think some people were afraid (to go to Torres's assistance)," Kirkley-Bey said. "There's such a fear factor growing in all our major cities that people are afraid to help people."

"It was outrageous to see people driving around him," said Andrea Comer, a past president of the Greater Hartford African-American Alliance and currently an elected member of the city's school board. "You say to yourself, 'What has happened to society?' "

Comer and Kirkley-Bey, though, are also quick to agree that what has been occurring in Hartford isn't unique to Connecticut's capital city. "I think this could have happened anywhere," said Comer.

"It's just been a really bad week for this city," she said.

The Torres hit-and-run occurred on May 30. Hartford police didn't release the security video until Wednesday because the quality was so poor it had to be enhanced at a Connecticut State Police laboratory to be of any use, according to the department's spokeswoman, Nancy M. Mulroy.

The video, taken from by a security camera mounted on a telephone pole, showed Torres attempting to cross the busy street. He was struck and tossed into the air when two speeding cars swerved into the lane where he was waiting for a break in the traffic. As Torres lay in the street, multiple cars and a motor bike maneuvered around him. A small crowd of onlookers stood on the sidewalk and watched for many long moments before approaching him.

Hartford Police Chief Daryl K. Roberts initially blasted the response of residents as "so inhumane," charging that "we no longer have a moral compass." But the following day, he tempered his remarks. "I believe we have good citizens in this city, that people care about this city," he said at a Thursday news conference. "We are not going to give up on our city."

At that news conference, Perez and other civic leaders called their community a "city of hope and opportunity" and urged residents to "turn our outrage into action."

On Friday, Mulroy said there are still no suspects in the Torres case. Governor M. Jodi Rell offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to arrests in the Torres case and another hit-and-run in New Haven that killed an 11-year-old girl Wednesday.

Nor has anyone been arrested in the beating and robbery of Carbone. He was attacked by several youths about 9:15 a.m. Monday morning as he walked along a path near Capitol Avenue, a few blocks from Connecticut's State Capitol complex.

On Wednesday, police reported the discovery of a man's decomposing body in the basement of a house in foreclosure on Hillside Avenue. Although no formal identification has been made, it is believed to be the body of a member of the family that had owned the house.

Roberts said that while no foul play was apparently involved, he found it peculiar that no one had reported the man missing.