Suspect in Hartford homicide was free on bond in connection to 2021 city slaying
A Hartford man was out on bond for his alleged involvement with another fatal shooting when he was charged with shooting two more people — killing one — in the city on Sunday morning, according to city officials and records.
Chan Williams-Bey Jr. is charged with murder, first-degree assault and criminal possession of a firearm in connection to a shooting in the 600 block of Wethersfield Avenue just after midnight that left 24-year-old Jordan Phipps dead and another person wounded, according to the Hartford Police Department
Chan Williams-Bey Jr.’s father was gunned down in 2020.
The shooting was one of three homicides in the city early Sunday morning. About 1:52 a.m., two more young men were killed in a shooting on Sterling Street — 23-year-old William Tisdol and 27-year-old Hakeem Dickson, both of Hartford.
Hartford man charged with murder in fatal shooting; 2 other men died in separate gunfire Sunday
Williams-Bey, 27, of Pratt Street, Hartford has an extensive criminal background in Connecticut with more than 11 current criminal and motor vehicle cases in the state’s court system. He was released on a $250,000 bond after being charged with first-degree assault and carrying a pistol without a permit in June 2021, records show.
That bond, said Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin on Sunday, was originally set at $1.7 million but then lowered to $250,000, which Williams-Bey posted. He was then arrested again in 2022, while out on bond and charged with a firearms offense. He, again, was released on bond, Bronin said.
Bronin said Sunday he was angry that Williams-Bey was released from custody and free to allegedly carry out another shooting.
“I’m angry that this person was not in jail,” the mayor said. “I’m angry that this person was out in the community and was able to continue to commit acts of violence that take people’s lives and traumatize a community. This person should have been locked up.”
Bronin commended Hartford police for their “incredibly swift, professional, effective work,” to make an arrest in the case, but said Williams-Bey’s criminal record highlights “systemic failures” that led to him being on city streets. These are what he said are failures he thinks the state needs to address, including a backlog of cases on the criminal docket such as Williams-Bey’s pending cases.
“Those cases are pending even though it’s been about two years since the initial shooting where he was trying to kill somebody in our community and where somebody died,” he said. “That case has been pending and he has been out for the last two years and last night he (allegedly) killed somebody and wounded somebody else.”
In June 2021, Williams-Bey allegedly told police that he opened fire at a park off of Bedford Street, but said he was not aiming at 37-year-old Siddhartha Lake-Sudan, who was struck in the chest and died at the scene, records show.
Lake-Sudan appeared to be caught in a crossfire behind the Wilson-Gray YMCA of attempted retaliation for another murder the summer before, records show.
Williams-Bey allegedly told detectives that his father, 49-year-old Chan Williams-Bey Sr., was gunned down in an apparent retaliation for the murder of Kennedy Burgess, 28, who was killed in a mass shooting at an unsanctioned nightclub in the North End.
The younger Williams-Bey allegedly told police he has been shot at dozens of times since this father’s death and that he cruised around early that morning looking to retaliate when he saw Burgess’ relative riding a scooter and opened fire, according to his account to police.
He was arrested after a crash in Farmington during a police pursuit and initially charged with murder, first-degree assault and carrying a pistol without a permit, records show.
He later allegedly wrote “I shot this guy” on a photograph of a second shooting victim discovered that same night further down Bedford Street, a 29-year-old man who survived injuries to his foot and leg, records show. Williams-Bey Jr. knew the man to be a relative of another Hartford murder victim, records show.
On Sunday morning, police Hartford responded just after midnight to a ShotSpotter notification on Wethersfield Avenue and Phipps, of Bloomfield, was pronounced dead at the scene.
While police were investigating, another victim arrived at Hartford Hospital with multiple gunshot wounds that weren’t life threatening. That man was expected to survive.
A little over an hour later, police responded to another ShotSpotter notification and found two men suffering from multiple gunshot wounds on Sterling Street.
Tisdol was unresponsive on the scene and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
Dickson was taken to St. Francis Hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.
The shooting on Sterling Street was still being investigated as of late Sunday but Bronin said both shootings were clearly “planned, premeditated, targeted attacks.”
Police said they had identified Williams-Bey as a suspect by Sunday afternoon and an arrest warrant was approved by a Superior Court judge. Investigators found Williams-Bey in a home on Pratt Street and he was taken into custody without incident, police said.
Bronin called for legislative changes, such as increased accountability for repeat firearm offenders, and said he hopes this case will ensure that “those individuals who are repeatedly responsible for committing acts of violence in our community face swift serious consequences and are not left free to commit further violence against a community that’s suffered way too much,” he said.
“We cannot tolerate individuals who repeatedly inflict violence on others in our community remaining free to do that,” Bronin said Sunday,
Williams-Bey was being held in lieu of $5 million bail late Sunday, police said.
The Hartford Police Major Crimes and Crime Scene Divisions responded to the shootings and were investigating the incidents.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Hartford police tip line at 860-722-8477.