Queens residents rally to close NYC migrant shelter where cop shooting suspect lived

Metro

By Valentina Jaramillo And Jorge Fitz Gibbon

Dozens of Queens residents on Sunday called on the city to close an East Elmhurst migrant shelter where a Venezuelan national accused of shooting two NYPD officers was staying.

About 60 residents and officials gathered outside the 90th Street building, a converted Courtyard Marriott hotel that now houses asylum seekers — and the former home of accused police shooter Bernardo Castro Mata, a migrant troublemaker from 19 year old charged with attempted murder. two of New York's best.

“Our community has been oversaturated with homeless shelters for far too long. This has been a complete failure at every level of government,” said former city councilman and state legislator Hiram Monserrate. “The recent shooting of our police officers is a flashpoint, it is time to act.

“You see it every day in our community, and we see how our quality of life has deteriorated,” Montserrate said. “Now we are getting complaints about RVs and prostitution right here on Ditmars Boulevard. Selling drugs right here on Ditmars Boulevard. Alcohol consumption right here in our community.

He said Queens already has 15 migrant shelters between Queens Boulevard and LaGuardia International Airport — and it has reached breaking point.

“Stop him,” residents chanted outside the 90th Street shelter on Sunday.

“Enough is enough,” said resident Frank Taylor, a member of the Ditmars Block Association. “It’s time to start closing some of them down, starting with this one.” Our community has suffered. We are taxpayers and property owners and we have been totally disrespected and taken for granted.

The Big Apple has been inundated with thousands of migrants from the U.S. 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 former East Elmhurst hotel late last month was Mata, who entered Texas illegally from Mexico in July, federal immigration officials said.

Mata was already a suspected gang member and member of a group of violent migrant scammers who were terrorizing the city when he allegedly shot two cops in Queens.

Sources told the Post that the accused shooter told detectives he was a member of the notoriously vicious Venezuelan gang “Tren de Aragua” and met with a New York City “coordinator” to be recruited into the robbery operations on two wheels.

According to residents, there is 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.

“We were concerned about 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 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. “It’s important, but it’s too much. It's just too difficult to flood this community with shelters that won't have the type of support we need.