West Hartford police have released the names of three men who they said were in an Infiniti that sped away from officers last week, went airborne and crashed in a fiery wreck.
The same car was spotted leaving the scene of a Hartford shooting and other crimes two days earlier.
Hartford police said they are trying to determine if the occupants are the same people who were in the Infiniti at the time of the July 25 shooting, which wounded a city resident trying to intervene as a thief rummaged through his car.
“We are trying to determine if they are our suspects,” Hartford police Lt. Aaron Boisvert said Monday.
The three were identified as Francisco Alberto Veras, 23, of Garden Street; Javier Ortiz, 19, of South Street; and Tajay Hunter, 21, of Terry Road, all of Hartford.
Police didn’t say how badly the occupants were injured or whether they remain in the hospital. No charges had been filed as of mid-afternoon Monday, when police were still investigating.
The Infiniti had made its rounds in Hartford and West Hartford last week during an auto crime spree.
Crime spree
The car first got on officers’ radar about 7 a.m. July 25, when police were dispatched to Berkeley Drive in the northwest corner of Hartford. There, a dark-colored Infiniti with three male occupants was spotted fleeing the scene of multiple catalytic converter thefts. Catalytic converters are pollutant-scrubbing devices that thieves steal from vehicle undercarriages so they can sell them for their precious metals.
Officers began to look for the Infiniti when the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system signaled gunfire on Addison Street in the northeastern part of the city. A victim then called 911 and said he had been shot by someone who left in an Infiniti.
The victim was a resident who received a notification that his Ring camera had picked up someone breaking into his car parked on the street in front of his house. He took a golf club and went outside to confront the thief, who he saw was rummaging through the vehicle after breaking the front driver’s side window.
The thief saw him and fired a shot from a handgun, striking the man on his thigh. The bullet went through his leg and into his house, ending up in the living room. The man is recovering; no one else was injured.
Police believe the thieves broke into dozens of vehicles throughout the city’s North End the night before. Information about the Infiniti was broadcast to area police agencies.
One of those departments was West Hartford, where a patrol officer spotted the Infiniti on Farmington Avenue the next day, July 26, police in that town said. The officer also saw people trying to steal a catalytic converter from a car parked on the street and interrupted the theft. The Infiniti took off.
Around 6 a.m. the next morning, July 27, Hartford police reported to West Hartford that they were chasing the Infiniti into their town on New Britain Avenue. The Infiniti turned onto New Park Avenue and sped north, police said. West Hartford police joined the chase.
“The vehicle was traveling at high speed when it lost control in the area of Jefferson Avenue,” West Hartford police Capt. Eric Rocheleau said in a news release. It left the road, struck some large rocks in a parking lot and went airborne, taking down wires and a utility pole before crashing into a parked vehicle and a house at New Park and Darcy Street.
Rocheleau said in a phone interview that if the car hadn’t hit the wires, it “probably would have gone into the house.”
The Infiniti caught fire.
Hartford and West Hartford officers helped the occupants of the crushed car, and they were taken to the hospital.
Christine Dempsey may be reached at cdempsey@courant.com.
