NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – A New York City parks seasonal worker was charged with fatally shooting a Venezuelan migrant at a Brooklyn park in July, police said Friday.
The NYPD responded to multiple 911 calls about shootings near a migrant Clinton Hill shelter and a nearby park on July 21.
Officers found Arturo Jose Rodriguez-Marcano, 30, with a gunshot wound to the chest inside Steuben Park at Steuben Street and Flushing Avenue. He was transported to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and later pronounced dead.
Initially, police believed the shelter and the park shooting were gang-related, but they later confirmed with 1010 WINS/ WCBS 880 that Rodriguez-Marcano's murder was “targeted.” They ruled out that it was a hate crime.
Following an investigation, Elijah Mitchell, 23, was arrested on Monday and charged for Rodriguez-Marcano's murder. Mitchell, a parks worker who also held a second job at a migrant shelter on Randall’s Island, was assigned to clean the park for a few hours each day. Police believe he had a confrontation with Rodriguez-Marcano a few days before the shooting, according to the New York Times.
Mitchell was suspended after his arrest, and the parks department is moving to terminate his employment, the New York Times reported.
In a separate incident just a couple of blocks away from Steuben Park, officers found two more injured men outside the shelter at 29 Ryerson St.: a 21-year-old with multiple gunshot wounds and a 59-year-old with a gunshot wound to the head.
The 21-year-old, identified as Enny DeJesus Urbina Mendez, a resident of the Ryerson Street shelter, was taken to NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, where he died. The 59-year-old man, Francisco Fuentes Rangel, was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in critical condition.
Police said two men rode up to the shelter on a moped, and the passenger opened fire before both fled. According to a law enforcement official, Mendez was the intended target.
About two minutes later, the men crashed the moped. The driver, Jorge Said Benitez Villa, 26, suffered a broken hip and was arrested at the scene. The other man fled the scene.
Police believe the second shooting was gang-related.