Queens residents on Sunday called for the city to shut down an East Elmhurst migrant shelter where a Venezuelan national accused of shooting two NYPD cops was shacking up.
About 60 residents and officials rallied outside the 90th Street building, a converted Courtyard Marriott hotel now housing asylum seekers — and the former home of accused cop shooter Bernardo Castro Mata, a 19-year-old trouble-making migrant charged with the attempted murder of two of New York’s Finest.
«Our community has been over-saturated with homeless shelters for far too long. This has been a total failure at all levels of government,» said former city councilman and state lawmaker Hiram Monserrate. «The recent shooting of our police officers is a flashpoint, time for action.
«You see it every day in our community, and we see how our quality of life has gone downhill,» Montserrate said. «Now we’re getting complaints about RVs and prostitution right here on Ditmars Boulevard. Drug sales right here on Ditmars Boulevard. Consumption of alcohol right here in our community.»
Some 60 East Elmhurst residents rallied outside a hotel now used as a migrant shelter, calling on the city to shut it down after one tenant was charged with shooting two cops.John Roca
He said Queens already had 15 migrant shelters between Queens Boulevard and LaGuardia International Airport — and has reached the breaking point.
«Shut it down,» residents chanted outside the 90th Street shelter on Sunday.
«Enough is enough,» said resident Frank Taylor, a member of the Ditmars Block Association. «Time to start shutting some of them down, starting with this one. Our community has suffered. We are taxpayers and homeowners and we have been totally disrespected and taken for granted.»
The Big Apple has been flooded with thousands of migrants from the US border over the past two years, with City Hall scrambling to find space for them — including in hotels, schools and churches.
Among those living at the one-time East Elmhurst hotel as recently as late last month was Mata, who crossed into Texas from Mexico illegally in July, federal immigration officials said.
Mata was already suspected of being a gangbanger and member of a violent migrant moped crew of crooks who have been terrorizing the city when he allegedly shot two cops in Queens.
Bernardo Castro Mata was arraigned on a pair of attempted murder charges for allegedly shooting two NYPD cops.for New York Daily News
Queens locals complained that there are already 15 migrant shelters between Queens Boulevard and LaGuardia airport.John Roca
Sources told The Post that the accused gunman told detectives that he was a member of the notoriously vicious Venezuelan «Tren de Aragua» gang and met with a New York City «coordinator» to be recruited into the two-wheeled robbery operations.
According to the locals, there’s no place in their community for Mata and other migrants.
Another resident, Dr. Lavern Nimmons has lived next to the hotel for 30 years — long before the city turned it into a shelter and created a headache for neighbors in the process.
«We were concerned about the shelters because we were concerned about the quality of life for New Yorkers,» said Nimmons, a retired elementary school principal. «Just because you’re poor doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a good quality of life.
«So we care about the quality of life of our neighbors, of our community of New Yorkers,» she added. «That’s important, but this is too much. It’s just too much to flood this community with shelters that will not get the kind of support that we need.»
By Social Links
for Valentina Jaramillo
and Social Links
for Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
The New York Post