A letter to the editor makes a lot of sense. I put the best parts in bold:

Shame on Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez and his monotonous droning: Crime is low. Crime is low [Page 1, Jan. 9, “City’s Deadly Statistic: Killings”; Connecticut section, Jan. 10, “City Crime Report Mixed”]. He needs to stop spreading rumors.

Shame on Police Chief Daryl Roberts. Who cares where an East Hartford man died? He was dumped right here in my city. To me, that matters more than one less murder. The fact that the killer knew he could safely and anonymously dump the body in Hartford — that’s the main point, not the numbers.

Shame on Roberts and the police department for saying that the killings are not random. This is not the time for advertising and public relations. They might as well say that these are drug dealers who deserve to die violent deaths as long as the rest of us are safe and more rich corporate types continue to move into our condos and make reservations for our convention center.

Shame on U.S. Attorney Kevin O’Connor for just now getting the idea to start asking the federal government for some insight into the high murder rate. This should have been done years ago. This is not the first time Hartford has had a high murder rate. This is not the first time this debate has sparked and instantly died out like a match in the wind.

While the news media reports on downtown revitalization, I never see the headline “Another Murder Solved In Hartford’s North End.”

These young men, these little boys with no future, are simply placed into the ground and remembered only as gang members and gun slingers — as statistics.

Shame on Hartford and its leaders. It seems they are just as lost and confused as the city’s youths.

Uchenna Richards

Hartford

Uchenna Richards hits on something about an attitude toward Hartford– it’s seen as okay to dump bodies, garbage, ex-offenders, and litter/graffiti. A few weeks ago a couple of young men from Unionville and Simsbury were arrested for spraying graffiti downtown. When ex-offenders (rapists, thieves, you name it) are released into halfway houses or just move into the neighborhood, there’s no uproar about it here, where other places are up in arms over it. We need more people like Uchenna to come forward and say that Hartford is not a place to destroy or hide crimes in. It’s not a place for people to drive to in order to buy drugs.

Stan Simpson’s column about the lack of police presence in the neighborhoods and too many young kids roaming the streets adds another dimension to this issue.