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. 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.
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, 23, 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.
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.
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