Eddie Perez (politician)
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Eddie Perez (born 1956) is a Puerto Rican who is the mayor of Hartford, Connecticut. Perez is the first former leader of a criminal gang to hold such a position.
Eddie Perez was born in Corozal, Puerto Rico, where he and his siblings were raised by a single mother. Looking for a better future for her kids, his mother flew her family to the United States in 1969, settling in Hartford. Much to their despair, they found deep poverty there, living in run-down apartments and facing heating system problems several times during the winter, which caused her to move her family several times around the city. One time, Perez stepped over the cadaver of a drug overdose victim, while playing around a neighborhood.
Eddie Perez and his brother got involved in crime at a young age, forming a gang named the Ghetto Brothers. The Ghetto Brothers operated during the 1970s.
Perez abandoned the criminal life in 1976, concentrating instead on becoming a community leader as well as on his newly found church's youth group, and playing a lot of basketball. He once coerced a financial company into donating 20,000 dollars for his community. Perez then found a job at Trinity College, where he was hired to try to recruit Hispanic students into their educational facility.
In 1995, Perez was put in charge by the Trinity College of a 175 million dollar project that included building fifteen more schools, and the project succeeded. In view of Perez's accomplishment, many Hartford residents started thinking about the possibility of him running for mayor, but it wasn't until eight years later that he would decide to run for that position. When mayor Mike Peters decided not to run for the title again in 2003, Perez became one of the most notable candidates to replace him.
Perez won the election by a considerable number of votes, and was sworn in on January 5, 2004.
Ever since Perez took office, the city of Hartford has faced economic problems and deep corruption in its police department.