A man was indicted on multiple hate crime charges in connection with the fatal July shooting of a Venezuelan migrant in Brooklyn, allegedly motivated by anger over migrants staying at a local park, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Elijah Mitchell, a 23-year-old from Queens, was charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime, second-degree menacing as a hate crime and other related offenses, according to a statement from Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.
“This defendant allegedly came to the location where the victim was staying, armed with a gun, to settle a score,” Gonzalez said. “This premeditated and cold-blooded homicide is outrageous on many levels, not least because the alleged motive was hatred towards new arrivals to our city."
Prosecutors alleged that Mitchell shot and killed 30-year-old Arturo Jose Rodriguez-Marcano, a migrant who had been sleeping at Steuben Playground, a small city park where Mitchell worked.
On July 18, police say Mitchell began yelling and tearing up the tarps where several migrants were staying at the park. After Rodriguez-Marcano confronted him, Mitchell left the scene, only to return with a gun tucked into his waistband. He lifted his shirt to display the weapon to Rodriguez-Marcano before being pulled away by other park workers.
according to police three days later, on the night of July 21, Mitchell returned to the park while 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 parks department confirmed to NBC News that Mitchell was employed as a seasonal worker in the playground's district at the time of the shooting but was terminated following his arrest.
Mitchell's indictment comes amid a wave of attacks near migrant shelters in New York City.
Just minutes after Rodriguez-Marcano's shooting, another shooting outside a migrant shelter in Brooklyn resulted in two deaths. Authorities later confirmed that the suspect arrested in that case was not Mitchell.
In late July, a triple shooting outside a city-run migrant shelter on Randall's Island left one woman dead and two men injured. Just weeks later, a man was stabbed outside the same shelter.
Other migrants who stayed at Steuben Playground alongside Rodriqugez-Marcano told the Gothamist that his shooting left them deeply shaken.
“I feel horrible. He was alone here in this country, like all of us,” one migrant told the site. “We think it will be safer in the United States, but here it’s the same — you still see violence, you still feel unsafe.”
A public defender has been assigned to Mitchell's case but could not be immediately 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.
