FOCUS OF TALK: CRIME

Fearing that their neighborhood is being overrun by drug-related violence,
residents in Hartford's Asylum Hill neighborhood peppered city police
officials Monday with questions about what they plan to do about it.

Chief among the residents' concerns are an increase in gun-related crime,
including a citywide rise in homicides compared with last year, and the
perceived indifference of police and other city agencies to respond to
their complaints.

One neighborhood resident, the Rev. Albert Bell, said he recently tried to
call the police department's main phone number, only to hang up in
frustration several minutes later when no one picked up.

"I was left wondering, 'Is it closed?'" Bell asked Police Chief Bruce P.
Marquis, who attended the meeting with three other department officials and
members of the city council.

Marquis answered that he, too, has tried to improve the efficiency of the
department's understaffed dispatch center, adding that he has long urged
city officials to place the dispatch center under civilian, rather than
police, command.

The chief said he tried calling the department's main number Monday
afternoon after witnessing a car accident in front of city hall on Main
Street, and was disappointed with the response he received.

"It took nine rings," he said. "I counted them, because that's how
sensitive I am to this issue. We can't get anything done if people aren't
answering the phone."

At the same time, Marquis and other police officials said the department is
being asked more and more to go beyond the police department's functions
and tackle problems such as blight and joblessness.

"We can't do everything," said Sgt. Arvid Leftwich, a supervisor in the
vice and narcotics division. "If we see drug dealers hanging out on a
street corner, we'll go after them. But the problem won't go away until we
have everyone working with us."

Capt. Stephen Heslin, who oversees police operations in Asylum Hill, said a
long-awaited program to go after problem properties has struggled to get
off the ground because of limited cooperation with other city agencies.

Leftwich said the department of licenses and inspections, as well as the
city health department, need to react quickly when police target a problem
business or private home where drugs are being sold.

"It can't take two or three weeks to get everyone together," he said. "Once
we go in there and make an arrest, they need to move in immediately to
revoke a license or find health code violations."

Residents also told police and city officials that they are alarmed by the
nine homicides so far this year, compared with only three at the same time
in 2001.