NYC Parks Dept. worker, Elijah Mitchell, charged with hate crime for deadly shooting of migrant
The city Parks Department worker accused of fatally shooting a Venezuelan migrant who pitched a tent in a Brooklyn green space last month is now facing hate crime charges.
Seasonal employee Elijah Mitchell was indicted on charges including murder as a hate crime during a court proceeding Wednesday for the July 21 shooting of Arturo Jose Rodriguez Marcano.
Mitchell was initially facing a second-degree murder rap.
The 23-year-old alleged killer was assigned to clean Steuben Playground near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Clinton Hill and grew enraged that migrants from nearby shelters set up camp in the park, according to prosecutors and police sources.
He showed up to work at the playground on July 18 and began ripping apart the tarps and tents at the encampment while yelling at the inhabitants, prosecutors said.
Rodriguez Marcano, 30, confronted the Parks employee and the pair argued until Mitchell went to his car and returned to flash a gun inside his waistband before his coworkers pulled him away, authorities said.
Three days later, Mitchell returned to the park at around 10:45 p.m., spotted the Venezuelan man and fired multiple shots at him, striking him in the chest, prosecutors alleged.
Rodriguez Marcano was rushed to Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he died of his injuries, cops said.
Mitchell was indicted on charges of second-degree murder as a hate crime, second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon, menacing as a hate crime and menacing.
He pleaded not guilty during a court hearing Wednesday and was held on bail of $350,000 cash or $2.5 million bond. He is due back in court on Oct. 23.
Mitchell was suspended from the Parks Department on July 30.
The killing was initially believed to be connected to a fatal shooting of two men outside a nearby migrant shelter just minutes later in what was a deadly and violent night for the city’s migrant population.
Enny DeJesus Urbina Mendez, 21, and Francisco Fuentes Rangel, 59, were both shot by a pair of suspects on a moped as they drove by the shelter at 29 Ryerson St., cops said.
Both men died at local hospitals and police later determined the cases were not related. The suspects in that case were believed to be members of the vicious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
With Post wires
