A Parks Department worker allegedly shot and killed a Venezuelan migrant camping out inside a Brooklyn green space near a pair of troubled shelters last month, cops and law enforcement sources said Friday.
Seasonal parks employee Elijah Mitchell, 23, apparently became enraged over the tent encampment set up by migrants at Steuben Playground on Flushing Avenue, near South Williamsburg and Clinton Hill, authorities and sources said.
His anger boiled over on July 21 at around 10:45 p.m., when Mitchell allegedly fired multiple shots at Arturo Jose Rodriguez-Marcano, 30, striking him in the chest — before taking off in a vehicle, according to cops and a criminal complaint.
Rodriguez-Marcano was rushed to Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries, cops said.
Mitchell was arrested Tuesday afternoon and charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
He was ordered held on $350,000 bail or $500,000 bond at his arraignment Wednesday, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
The Parks Department confirmed that Mitchell was a seasonal worker first employed from May through September of 2023, and then rehired in May of this year.
He was suspended on July 30 and the department is “moving to terminate his employment.”
In a separate shooting just blocks away and minutes later – which investigators initially believed was linked to the gunfire at the park – two men were fatally shot outside a migrant shelter at 29 Ryerson St., cops said.
Two suspects pulled up to the shelter on a moped – and one of them hopped off and opened fire, cops said.
Enny DeJesus Urbina Mendez, 21, was shot multiple times and taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, cops said.
Francisco Fuentes Rangel, 59, was shot in the head and taken to Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries two days later, according to police.
Video shared on Instagram shows the aftermath of a crash at Park Avenue and Taaffe Place, where the suspects’ moped and a car collided.
The moped driver – later identified as Jorge Said Benitez Villa, 26, was injured and arrested, while his passenger — the suspected shooter — ran off and was still at large Friday, cops and sources said.
That shooting was believed to be linked to a bloody turf war between the vicious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and former members battling over control of drugs and prostitution, according to sources.
Benitez Villa, who was charged with two counts of second-degree murder, was still hospitalized Friday and had not been arraigned.
Investigators have since determined that the two shootings were not connected, according to sources.
