Queens man charged with hate crime after shooting Venezuelan migrant, police said

A man has been charged with multiple hate crimes in connection with the fatal shooting of a Venezuelan migrant in Brooklyn in July. The attack was allegedly motivated by anger at migrants gathered in a local park, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Elijah Mitchell, a 23-year-old from Queens, has been charged with first-degree murder as a hate crime, second-degree threatening as a hate crime and other related offenses, according to a statement from Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.

“This defendant allegedly came armed to the location of the victim to settle a score,” Gonzalez said. “This premeditated and cold-blooded murder is outrageous on many levels, not least because the alleged motive was hatred toward newcomers to our city.”

Prosecutors alleged that Mitchell shot and killed 30-year-old migrant Arturo Jose Rodriguez-Marcano, who had been sleeping in Steuben Playground, a small city park where Mitchell worked.

On July 18, Mitchell began screaming and tearing up the tarps under which several migrants were staying in the park, according to police. After Rodriguez-Marcano confronted him, Mitchell left the scene but returned with a gun in his waistband. He lifted his shirt to show Rodriguez-Marcano the gun before other park employees pulled him away.

According to police, Mitchell returned to the park three days later, on the evening of July 21, off duty and allegedly shot Rodriguez-Marcano once in the chest. Rodriguez-Marcano was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead thirty minutes later.

Police said Mitchell fled the scene but was arrested and charged on July 29.

The city's parks department confirmed to NBC News that Mitchell was employed as a seasonal worker in the playground area at the time of the shooting, but was fired after his arrest.

Mitchell's indictment came amid a wave of attacks near migrant shelters in New York City.

Minutes after Rodriguez-Marcano was shot, another shooting occurred outside a Brooklyn migrant shelter that left two people dead. Authorities later confirmed that the suspect arrested in that case was not Mitchell.

At the end of July, a three-gun shooting occurred outside a municipal migrant shelter on Randall's Island. One woman was killed and two men were injured. Just a few weeks later, a man was stabbed to death outside the same shelter.

Other migrants who remained at the Steuben Playground with Rodriqugez-Marcano told Gothamist that the shooting had deeply shaken them.

“I feel terrible. He was alone here in this country, like all of us,” one migrant told the website. “We think it's safer in the United States, but it's the same here – you still see violence, you still feel unsafe.”

A public defender has been assigned to Mitchell's case, but he could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mitchell faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison and is scheduled to appear in court on October 23.