PD: Shootings that killed 3-year-old, 16-year-old are related

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    HARTFORD, CT (WFSB) — The City of Hartford is mourning the death of a 3-year-old who was killed in a shooting over the weekend.

Police continue to try and track down the suspect or suspects responsible.

A vigil has also been planned for 3-year-old Rondell Jones. It’ll happen on Nelson Street at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

Police said Rondell was the unintended target of Saturday’s shooting. The whole incident was caught on city cameras.

City leaders vowed that justice will be served.

“[It’s a] sad tragedy of a young innocent kid, life being taken away,” said Thomas Lumpkin of Hartford.

There is anger and heartache as the capital city mourns the death of Rondell.

A memorial on Nelson Street is growing. Candles, teddy bears and balloons honor a young life cut short.

The Hartford Police Department’s Shotspotter system alerted it to a shooting on Saturday afternoon. A local hospital also notified police that a 3-year-old arrived in a private vehicle with a gunshot wound.

Rondell was first listed in critical condition. That later changed.

Police said the 3-year-old was inside a car with a male passenger who was believed to have been the target of the shooting.

“The entire incident was captured on the Hartford police cameras in short order,” said Lt. Aaron Boisvert, Hartford police. “A black Honda Accord stopped alongside the victims’ vehicle and shot directly into that victims’ vehicle. The passenger points a gun and very intentionally fires at that car.”

Rondell Jones’s mother and 4- and 5-year-old siblings were also inside of the car.

That passenger and the suspects’ in the Honda Accord fled.

On Monday, Hartford Police Chief Jason Thody said the shooting that killed Jones and a shooting that killed 16-year-old Jamari Preston of New Britain are related to one another.

Chief Thody released a statement saying, The Harford Police Department continues to actively investigate this weekend’s homicides, and we have made progress. Based on information developed, we currently believe that the shootings on Nelson Street and Magnolia Street were related to one another. We will continue to devote every resource to bring the perpetrators to justice, and we are grateful for our partners who are working alongside us. We also again ask our community to come forward with information they may have.”

Hartford police said they are working closely with their community partners to try to curb violence, especially as the weather gets warmer. That includes plain clothes and uniform officers patrolling streets.

Police want witnesses to the shooting to come forward.

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