Elmer Román, the public safety secretary, said after the meeting that police presence would be stepped up at public housing complexes. Officers will be working 12-hour shifts so more of them can be on duty.

“We know we can’t keep doing more of the same,” Mr. Román said. “This has to end now.”

But he offered few details of what law enforcement would start doing differently and acknowledged that a shortage of police officers has not helped.

“I don’t want to offer excuses,” Mr. Román said. “These crimes, these sort of ambushes, are difficult to prevent in many circumstances, because I can’t have a cop on every corner.”

On Tuesday morning, more than 12 hours after the shooting at the Ernesto Ramos Antonini housing complex in the Río Piedras neighborhood, the bodies of five of the people killed — four men and one woman — remained covered on the ground outside as the police gathered evidence on the scene. The bodies were removed by early afternoon.

The police had recovered more than 1,000 bullet casings of different calibers, including long guns, suggesting links to the illegal drug trade, Lt. José Cruz, director of the San Juan Criminal Investigations Bureau’s homicide division, told El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico’s largest daily newspaper.