The migrant man who shot and wounded two NYPD cops in Queens was hit with an attempted murder charge Tuesday, police said.
Bernardo Raul Castro Mata, 19, was also charged with assault, criminal possession of a weapon, resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration in the Monday shootout.
Officer Richard Yarusso and Officer Christopher Abreu were investigating a robbery pattern involving crooks on mopeds and scooters when they spotted Castro Mata over on a scooter zipping the wrong way on 82nd Street near 23rd Avenue in East Elmhurst around 1:40 a.m., cops said.
When the officers tried to pull the teen over, he hopped off his scooter and ran off.
The cops caught up with Castro Mata and tackled him to the ground, where the suspect pulled a gun and fired, police said.
Yarusso was struck in his bullet-resistant vest and Abreu was hit in the leg. They were treated at Elmhurst Hospital Center and released later Monday.
At least one of the officers fired off shots, striking Castro Mata in the ankle. He is still hospitalized at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens and is set to be arraigned Wednesday morning.
Castro Mata entered the U.S. illegally from Venezuela through Eagle Pass, Tex., last July and had been staying at a Ditmars Boulevard migrant shelter that used to be the Marriott LaGuardia hotel, cops said.
When he was arrested Tuesday, he was in possession of multiple credit cards, two of which were linked to gunpoint robberies in the Bronx committed by scooter-riding thieves, police said Tuesday.
He’s the suspect in numerous robberies and a May 30 incident in which cops believe he pulled a gun on a security guard at a Lot Less store in Queens.
The suspect fled from the store on the same scooter Castro Mata was on when officers Yarusso and Abreu tried to pull him over.
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