IN HARTFORD, PULLING OUT ALL THE STOPS TO HALT CRIME

HARTFORD, July 25 -- With community outrage still palpable over the
shooting of a girl in the face as she played outside on the Fourth of July,
teams of local police officers and state troopers fanned out across
Hartford today as part of a new joint effort to quash crime and halt the
soaring murder rate.

The crackdown, which includes joint undercover enforcement operations and
stepped-up efforts by prosecutors and parole officials, began Tuesday and
is to last two months, officials said.

By hammering criminals from all sides, including executing thousands of old
arrest warrants and prosecuting charges at the federal level when possible,
officials said they hoped to cripple Hartford's violent drug trade and give
the city time to address its long-term shortage of police officers.

"What we are going to get out of this operation is some portion of the bad
guys who are causing our spike in violent crime right now," said Lt. Neil
Dryfe, a spokesman for the Hartford Police Department. "We are going to get
them with guns and we are going to get them with drugs. There is a huge
prosecutorial angle to this and we are going to get them and put them away
for a while."

The decision to provide heavy reinforcements to Hartford was a direct
result of widespread anger over the accidental shooting of Takira Gaston by
a drug dealer. As she recuperated in the hospital and spent her eighth
birthday there, Gov. John G. Rowland held two meetings to help coordinate
the different law enforcement agencies, and neighborhood leaders held
numerous demonstrations demanding action.

Today, some of those neighborhood leaders said that the stepped-up police
efforts were already visible. Cornell Lewis, a drug counselor and minister
at the North End Church of Christ, said he was at a gas station on Tuesday
and noticed a uniformed state trooper and plainclothes officers in marked
and unmarked cars.

"You see them traveling throughout the city," he said. "You see them in
convoys and you see them doing the work. I know that the people clamored
for help and so help is here."

But while Mr. Lewis said he was happy about the increased police presence,
he also said some people were concerned that there had not been enough
citizen involvement.

"We would have liked to have had input to make sure it is not just going to
be cracking down on people of color," he said, "that there is some kind of
equity focusing on suburbanites who come to buy drugs."

Although there have been no arrests in Takira's case, the Hartford police
chief, Bruce P. Marquis, has said investigators believe that she was caught
in the cross-fire of a turf war between drug dealers.

Takira, who had to undergo major reconstructive surgery to repair her face
and jaw, returned home on Friday after two weeks at Yale-New Haven Medical
Center. She is expected to make a full recovery and has become the
sympathetic, human face of a city wearied by crime, and an inspiration for
law enforcers.

"The turf doesn't belong to the drug dealers, it belongs to the citizens of
Hartford," said John M. Bailey, Connecticut's chief state's attorney and
the state's top prosecutor, who has lent a special gang unit from his
office to the crackdown.

The effort is focused on arresting residents of the suburbs who go to
Hartford to buy drugs, Mr. Bailey said. Another emphasis is on criminals
with guns. He said prosecutors would seek five-year prison terms for anyone
convicted of gun possession, and federal charges would be considered
against convicted felons found in possession of a gun.

Trooper Roger Beaupre, a spokesman for the state police, said that more
than 30 troopers and supervisors were taking part in the Hartford effort.
He also said that state officials were sensitive to resentment by some
Hartford officers over the state police presence.

"We are not by any means coming in and taking over," he said. "We are just
allowing them access to more resources."

Perhaps the area of greatest concern is Hartford's murder rate, which has
soared this year. There have already been 18 killings in the city, matching
the total in all of 2000.

Among the challenges facing the police force, Lieutenant Dryfe said, is a
severe shortage of officers. The Police Department is authorized in the
city budget to employ up to 460 officers. But today, he said, there are
only 421 on the payroll. A police academy class of 20 cadets will not
graduate until December, Lieutenant Dryfe said.

He said police officials were aware of criticism that the current crackdown
would not solve the long-term problems. "If you look at it solely from the
manpower perspective, people are saying this is just a Band- Aid," he said.
"Sixty days from now there won't be any more Hartford police officers on
the street."

But he said the department was confident that this effort would bring
improvement. "We are going to saturate the city and we are going to try to
move around to keep people off balance," Lieutenant Dryfe said. "We are
going to disrupt the street-level narcotics trade, which is where a lot of
this violence is starting from. The people of the city expect us to do
whatever it takes."

Mr. Lewis, the minister, said that people in the community also had to do
their part. "The drug dealers have imposed a norm on the community of
lawlessness," he said. "A girl got shot and people can't go out and play.
Somebody has to be responsible. Somebody has to say, `Enough.' "