A CITY OF TENSION, TURF WARS

When suspected gang members in Connecticut finish their prison sentences
and go home, their destination most often is Hartford.

Since 1997, at least 349 convicted felons with alleged gang ties have
returned to Hartford, more than twice the number who went to Bridgeport and
New Haven, a Courant review of state prison records shows.

With drug-related killings and gun violence spiking upward this year,
Hartford's position as the leading way station for released gang members is
taking on an ominous significance: Law officers say the influx of hardened
ex-convicts has contributed to the bloodshed.

Several former inmates with gang ties have been killed this year. Others
have added to the violence indirectly because the younger, trigger-happy
drug dealers who now occupy the street corners perceive them as a threat,
officials say.

The problem gripping Hartford was punctuated on Independence Day, when a
stray bullet, possibly from a drug dispute, tore through the mouth of
7-year-old Takira Gaston as she rode a scooter outside her north Hartford
home. She remained in critical condition late Saturday at Yale-New Haven
Hospital spokesman, where she faces reconstructive surgery.

The return of prisoners who were suspected of gang ties has brought
"tension and turf battles to the city," Chief State's Attorney John M.
Bailey said.

His office took part in a law-enforcement crackdown that sent hundreds of
Hartford gang members and drug dealers to prison in the early and mid-1990s.

"More went in [from Hartford], so more are coming out," Bailey said. "And
now there's a new group on the street. The guy out of prison comes back to
his territory and says, 'This is where I belong.' The new guys say, 'No you
don't.'"

Hartford has had 16 homicides so far this year, the most in the state. At
least 10 of the victims, and four of the suspects, had lengthy prison records.

Of the dozen homicides that police say were drug-related, four of the
victims were members of Los Solidos, 20 Love or other street gangs, said
Sgt. Christopher Lyons, the city police department's gang expert.

Those four were gang soldiers, not the high-profile gang leaders who were
prosecuted under state racketeering laws. And the four appear not to be
included in the town-by-town records of released gang members that the
Department of Correction provided to The Courant - a list that included
numbers only, not names. That list is not exhaustive, Hartford police said.

In recent months, evidence that some of those men are back home on Hartford
streets can be heard in the gunfire ripping through the city, Lyons said.

But the instigators of the recent violence are loosely knit bands of
younger drug dealers, known as crews, not the 1980s- and '90s-style gangs -
groups that were so organized that federal prosecutors were able to
dismantle them using racketeering laws meant for the Mafia, Lyons said.
Violence In Hartford

"These [crews] are disorganized, especially in the North End," Lyons said.
"Before [10 years ago], the money would go into the same kitty. Now
everyone is putting the drug money in their own pockets."

These people are, first and foremost, drug peddlers, which sets them apart
from the gang members of the 1990s, who placed gang loyalty over everything
else, he said.

Against this backdrop, "Many people are getting out of jail. Before they
were locked up, they had a place on the street. They think they still own
it. They come out saying they want what is theirs," Lyons said.

Lyons provided details about four of the ex-convicts who were killed in the
city this year.

Curtis T. Daniels, 26, gunned down in an alley on South Marshall Street on
June 18, had been considered "the most dangerous man in the neighborhood"
by residents, Lyons said.

After Daniels' release from prison last year, Lyons said, he "terrorized
his neighborhood by robbing, dealing drugs and intimidating people. Dozens
of people wanted to kill him. This was a justice issue. The night before he
was killed, he was chased by police. He was running with a gun."

Daniels had also been shot and wounded in that same alley in March by a
rival he knew only as Mike. No arrests have been made in Daniels' slaying.

Investigators say they believe a gambling debt that Marvin Keith Blunt, 30,
owed to notorious fugitive Anthony Ewing was behind Blunt's killing in
January. Ewing, the prime suspect in the case, remains on the run and may
be in Canada, authorities say. At the time of his death, Blunt, the
youngest of 11 children and father of 11 children, was serving a period of
supervised home release following a federal drug-trafficking conviction.
His probation was scheduled to end April 2002.

The slaying of Kendall Terry, 27, may be tied to his involvement in the
1995 beating death of Derek Faniel, 34, Lyons said. Terry served five years
for his participation in the beating. Police said that when Faniel refused
to buy cocaine from Terry and five other men, the group became enraged and
beat him severely, fracturing his skull. Faniel died of those injuries.

Terry was sentenced to serve 10 years, but was released last November. He
was killed in front of his mother's house in April. No arrests have been made.

The criminal career of another homicide victim, William Corey Ashley, 25,
dates to 1992, when he was convicted as a youthful offender. Ashley was
convicted at least 15 times of selling drugs and assault. Police have no
suspects in connection with his slaying.

A state prosecutor said Friday that authorities do not believe the
higher-profile former gang leaders who have returned to Hartford are
involved in the recent killings.

To stay on top of the former gang members' movements, law officers are
checking with probation and parole officials to make sure the ex-gang
members are complying with their court-set conditions of release, and not
slipping back into their roles as crime bosses.

City, state and federal officials are planning a response to the killings
that includes intensifying efforts to solve the homicides - 12 of the 16
remain unsolved - and making narcotics-distribution cases against key drug
peddlers in Hartford's North End. The majority of the homicides have taken
place in the North End.