Questions persist about migrant suspect who allegedly shot 2 NYPD officers in Queens
EAST ELMHURST, Queens (PIX11) -- After they were shot by a suspect who detectives say is an undocumented migrant, two NYPD officers are home recovering, following their release from the hospital.
Officer Richard Yarusso wheeled his partner, Officer Christopher Abreu, out of Elmhurst Hospital Monday morning after the two of them were given permission by doctors to go home. A long line of fellow officers from their precinct, the 115th, applauded as the two went from the hospital door to NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, who were waiting by vehicles standing by to get them home.
Hours earlier at the hospital, Mayor Eric Adams led a news conference, in which he held up the kevlar vest that Yarusso was wearing when he was shot in the torso.
"This is what we're fighting every day," Adams said, as he talked about the gun violence and gun seizures the police have done.
Police identified the shooter as Bernardo Raul Castro Mata, 19. They said that he's a migrant who entered the U.S. illegally last July.
It's a point that was discussed by Ken Genalo, the field office director for New York for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. In an interview, he said that the fact that a migrant allegedly shot at cops is a sad aspect of the overall immigration situation in the country.
"It's almost like a broken record," Genalo said, "especially those that are targeting our law enforcement partners."
Genalo said that if the country adopted laws that allowed even more interaction between federal and local law enforcement on immigration issues it could help agents intercept more people like Mata sooner.
Prior to the shooting, Mata was already a suspect in a variety of crimes, including robbery, carried out using a motor scooter.
His motor scooter, investigators said, was unregistered. It was recovered at the shooting scene, after the two officers tried to pull him over for driving the wrong direction on a one-way street around 1:40 a.m. on Monday.
Police also said that Mata was staying at a migrant shelter less than a block away from the shooting scene, which was on 23rd Avenue, near 89th Street.
At the shelter, nobody there said they knew Mata.
In the neighborhood surrounding the shelter, residents said that crime in the area is real.
Carli Sinclair lives right next to the shelter.
"It's definitely a change in the neighborhood," she said. "I think there just has to be more police presence around the area."
Her neighbor, Francis Gomes, agreed. He said that more frequent patrols would be welcome.
"It's getting worse," he said. "And I'm worried. We neighbors have been talking [about increased crime], since this hotel became an illegal migrant shelter."
NYPD crime statistics bear out the residents' concerns.
The 115th Precinct's data show that through May 26 incidents of rape are up 71.4%; burglary are up 44.8%; and robbery incidents are up 33.6%, compared to the same period last year.