(HARTFORD—WTIC News) Responding to resident complaints about noisy and recklessly-driven all-terrain vehicles (ATV’s) buzzing around the capital city, police in Hartford are looking to take them off streets and out of city parks.
An operation last Saturday led to the seizure of 7 ATV’s and 2 mopeds. 6 people were arrested—all from out-of-town, according to police.
“To those folks who are coming into our community riding these illegal ATV’s,” says Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, “we are going to make sure that you can’t come into Hartford and do what you know you can’t do in West Hartford, what you know you can’t do in Manchester, whatever town you’re from.”
City police have seized about 100 ATV’s since the start of last year.
“We do have ordinance in the city that allows us to seize them as part of a criminal investigation,” says Lt. Aaron Boisvert. “A lot of those will be destroyed.”
Boisvert says while Hartford police got some drone support from state police during their weekend operation, they’re relying on their own expanding resources:
“We’ve got a whole division that monitors our city streets using our C4 cameras, strategically placed all over the city. We just got a bunch of new drones that we’re gonna be deploying. The plan will be to monitor these illegal ATV riders from the sky, find out where they’re coming, find out where they’re congregating and move in and get ‘em just when they think that they’ve lost us.”
“Let’s take Colt Park,” says Chief James Rovella, who says he’s been hearing from residents. “It means that they want to go down there on a Saturday or Sunday and enjoy the fields, have a picnic with their family, and they see these ATV’s just ruining the place and endangering their children when they run around. We’re not going to tolerate that.”