Illegal-Alien Suspect in NYPD Shootings Had Case Closed after Crossing Border

An illegal alien accused of shooting two NYPD officers on Monday morning was arrested last year for crossing into Texas illegally but was released, and his unlawful-immigration case was dismissed and closed last month.

On May 6, an immigration judge in Chicago closed the case of Venezuelan man Bernardo Castro Mata, 19, who is the suspect in the nonfatal attacks against the cops on Monday, ICE sources told the New York Post.

Castro-Mata shot one cop in the chest and another in the leg after they tried to pull him over as he drove the wrong way down a busy one-way street in Queens on an unregistered scooter. NYPD said officers chased him for several blocks after he abandoned the moped. As he was approached by police officers, Castro-Mata allegedly fired at the pair with an unlicensed handgun and then ran away from the scene around 1:40 a.m., NYPD said.

In the fall, National Review documented complaints from elderly residents of New York’s Upper West Side that they had been followed and harassed by illegal aliens, who zip around the city on electric mopeds, cutting off drivers and disobeying traffic rules. One woman at a September meeting with the local NYPD precinct said she was cut off by a migrant on a moped running a red light. After she reacted negatively, telling him “Come on, man,” he followed her for four blocks and called her a “racist white bitch,” she said.

Later Monday, dozens of NYPD officers greeted the two cops with salutes and applause as they left the hospital where they had received care. The one whose bulletproof vest absorbed the shot pushed the wheelchair of the other who was injured in the right leg.

An illegal alien whose case is terminated is no longer in “removal proceedings” for deportation, the Post noted. That individual can then reapply for asylum or pursue other avenues of legal status in the country.

Police said Castro-Mata is believed to be tied to a series of violent robberies around New York City.

“What we’ve seen in the past with these motorized scooters, they operate as a crew, we’re looking at him for several other robbery patterns in the Queens area, where he does have other co-defendants,” NYPD chief of detectives Joseph Kenny said during a press conference Monday. “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.”

Last Tuesday night, Castro-Mata allegedly attacked a woman in Long Island City and stole her credit card, which he later used at a Queens smoke shop, according to NYPD records obtained by the Daily Mail.

Castro-Mata illegally crossed the border in July last year through Eagle Pass, Texas, Kenny said. He had been living at a migrant shelter on Ditmars Boulevard, near the site of the incident.

While being apprehended by police in Elmhurst, Castro-Mata was shot in the ankle. He later underwent treatment at NewYork-Presbyterian Queens hospital.

The alleged attack against NYPD cops by Castro-Mata comes after the tragedy of Laken Riley, a teenager attending the University of Georgia who was allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant while jogging in March.

Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was indicted in May by a Georgia grand jury on charges including felony murder,  kidnapping, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing a person making a 911 call, evidence tampering, and being a “peeping tom,” according to a ten-count indictment filed in Clark County Superior Court and shared by Fox News. Nine of the charges are felonies and the charge for interfering with a call is a misdemeanor.