By Josh Kovner and Savannah Mul, Hartford Courant
HARTFORD — A 34-year-old city man died Saturday afternoon after he was shot multiple times in the face and head at South Green Park, near 66 Main St., in what a deputy police chief said appears to be “a deliberate and specific attack on the victim.”
Huberto R. O’Neil, of 82 Cabot St., is the city’s sixth homicide victim this year, said Deputy Chief Brian J. Foley.
O’Neil himself was convicted of killing another man 17 years ago, when he was 17, according to court records.
Later Saturday, another man, Jonathan Weaver, 25, was shot and critically wounded on Albany Avenue, Foley said. He was taken to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center.
Foley said additional plainclothes units were deployed in the city Saturday evening, including members of the shooting task force and the neighborhood conditions unit.
In the Main Street case, dispatchers received several 911 calls at 12:56 p.m. Saturday reporting a man shot. Patrol officers found O’Neil lying on the sidewalk on the east side of South Green Park, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, said Foley. Medics pronounced him dead at the scene.
A motive was not immediately clear.
O’Neil was convicted in 1997 of manslaughter and received 12 years in prison in the slaying of 21-year-old Carlos Carrasco on Nov. 11, 1994, outside 54 Delta St. in the Charter Oak Terrace housing complex, court records show. O’Neil also was convicted in 2005 of assaulting a police officer, the records show.
Hartford police said they were searching for a person whom Foley said was last seen heading north on Main Street away from the shooting scene.
Major Crime Squad detectives began canvassing for witnesses and tracking leads on a suspect while crime-scene detectives collected evidence.
The other shooting happened at about 5 p.m. in the area of 1039 Albany Ave., Foley said. Weaver was behind the wheel of a car stopped at Albany Avenue and Oakland Terrace when a person walked up to the car and shot Weaver in the neck, Foley said.
The victim began driving to St. Francis, but crashed into another vehicle along the way, Foley said. Weaver was reported to be in critical condition.
Dispatchers issued a bulletin for a possible suspect’s vehicle, a late-model, black Toyota Corolla with Pennsylvania license plates, last seen westbound on Albany Avenue.
The Hartford Police Department is asking anyone with information on the cases to contact Sgt. Brandon O’Brien at 860-757-4089. Also, tips can be reported anonymously to CrimeStoppers at 860-722-TIPS.