Migrant Killed in Brooklyn Was Targeted by a Parks Worker, Police Say

The police charged the worker, who had a seasonal cleaning job, with fatally shooting a Venezuelan migrant at a Brooklyn park where some homeless migrants spend the night.

On a Sunday night in July, a Venezuelan migrant was shot in the chest and killed in a small park in Brooklyn, a few blocks from a hulking cluster of buildings used as migrant shelters.

Moments later, two other migrants were shot and killed outside the shelters, and the police began investigating whether the two incidents were connected. Speculation swirled that the back-to-back shootings were tied to migrant gangs, unsettling nearby residents.

Then, this week, detectives made an unpublicized breakthrough: They arrested a New York City parks worker on murder charges on Monday, accusing him of fatally shooting the Venezuelan man in the park on July 21.

The police said that the worker, Elijah Mitchell, fired multiple shots at the man, Arturo Jose Rodriguez-Marcano, 30, before driving away in a blue sedan, according to a law enforcement official and a complaint filed in Criminal Court in Brooklyn.

Mr. Mitchell, who had a second job at a migrant shelter on Randall’s Island, was assigned to clean the park for a few hours a day, and the police believe he had a confrontation with Mr. Rodriguez-Marcano a few days before shooting him, according to a law enforcement official. Mr. Mitchell made $20 an hour as a seasonal park worker last summer and was hired again in May of this year. The Parks Department said he was suspended after his arrest and that the department was moving to terminate his employment.

Efforts to reach a lawyer for Mr. Mitchell on Thursday were unsuccessful.