Migrant accused of shooting NYPD cops suspected in snatch-and-grab robberies of two women days earlier
NY Post
The Venezuelan migrant accused of shooting two NYPD cops on Monday is suspected of helping to rough up two women — one of whom was slugged in the face — during a pair of snatch-and-grab robberies days ago, police and sources said.
Bernardo Castro Mata — a 19-year-old who entered the country illegally last year — was being eyed in the violent May 21 robberies in Queens before the police shooting, sources said.
He may be part of one of several migrant moped-riding robbery crews that have been terrorizing residents around the city for months, police said.
“The patterns that we’re looking at currently in Queens that he’s involved with involve phone snatches and instances where a woman was attacked, her credit card was stolen and eventually used in a Queens smoke shop,’’ NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters after Monday’s police shooting.
That crime is believed to have involved Mata and another young man on a black and red moped who forcefully swiped their victim’s purse about 7:25 p.m. that Tuesday near 30th Street and 38th Avenue in Long Island City, Queens, sources said.
The purse contained $200, debit and credit cards, an iPhone, MetroCard and documents such as IDs and insurance cards, sources said.
