Six NYC migrant shelter residents arrested as cops confiscate scooters: sources
Cops arrested six residents of a Brooklyn migrant shelter Thursday morning — and charged three of them with assault on an officer — for allegedly getting rowdy during an NYPD crackdown on illegal scooters, sources said.
The officers went to the men’s shelter at 455 Jefferson Street in East Williamsburg at about 7:50 a.m. after the department got several complaints from the community about mopeds, scooters and bikes parked in the area.
Some of the residents got out of hand when cops began confiscating the vehicles, sparking a scuffle that led to the six arrests, law enforcement sources told The Post.
Three of the migrants — Luis Panta Marquez, 22;Victor Rodriguez, 25; and Wuilliam Borges-Mendez, 26 — were charged with attacking an officer and other crimes, sources said.
The other three — Wael Mohamed, 19; Gilbert Jose Veliz Fernandez, 21; andJose Eduardo Delgado Martinez, 25 — were charged with resisting arrest and obstruction.
All six live in the same shelter complex, a six-story building between Flushing Avenue and Jefferson Street on the Queens border.
In cellphone footage obtained by The Post, a crowd of men yelling in Spanish flocks around a group of officers trying to seize scooters and keep suspects under control.
One of the handcuffed men starts struggling hard against a group of about a half-dozen officers, and falls to the ground with two cops in tow.
Eventually, the officers get the man into the back of a waiting paddy wagon.
In other clips, cops grapple with men fighting to keep their bikes and scooters before the cops can load them onto a rack on the back of a waiting NYPD truck.
“Get back! Get the f—k back!” the officers scream at the growing mob.
The men yell in Spanish and launch objects at the cops, one of whom pulls a Taser and sparks up a crackling electrical current — which appears to back some of them off, the footage shows.
EMS workers treated two cops for minor injuries, sources said. Officers also confiscated 16 electric scooters.
It’s not the first time trouble has erupted at one of the city’s migrant shelters over the vehicles, which many asylum seekers use to find work without permits.
“Because we’re immigrants, we don’t have many options,” one migrant told Fox 5 earlier this week. “One of the easiest options is to grab a motorcycle and apply on Uber.”
At the Brooklyn shelter Thursday, a migrant named Meron told The Post they can’t park behind the building — where there’s actually bike parking — because they’re not allowed.
But there’s not always room in front — “There are a lot of people with scooters,” the Eritrean immigrant said.
And some of the men don’t know they even need a license for the mopeds, he said.
“In Africa, where we come from, we don’t get license for a small bike,” he said. “When we buy the bike they know we are asylum seekers – and they don’t tell you get license. The problem is from them, not us.”
Another man — a 42-year-old from Venezuela who refused to give his name — said he watched the near-riot and that cops brought to jail anyone who tried to defend themselves.
“They abused them, then took the motorcycles with plates and papers and everything,” he claimed.
But Mamadou, a 34-year-old Senegalese man who’s been in America for eight months, said cops left his vehicle alone because he had a license.
“My bike is legal,” he told The Post, showing that his bike had a license plate. “I go to the DMV. I gave them my Senegal passport and my New York ID and they gave me learner’s permit.”
“I go to school for one month to learn,” he continued. “One month, I go back to DMV and I pass the test and they gave me the license.”
Late last month, cops arrested a female migrant outside an Upper West Side shelter for allegedly slapping an officer who was trying to confiscate her unregistered motorbike.
Cops had been conducting a scooter crackdown patrol Aug. 31 at West 71st Street and Broadway, steps from the Stratford Arms Hotel, which the city is using as a shelter.
Baibaia Rodriguez, 20, was charged with resisting arrest, obstruction of governmental administration, and harassment after she “hit an officer with an open hand” around 10:30 p.m., according to police.
She was released on her own recognizance at her arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court the following day.
The chaos has left some migrants disenchanted.
“This is not the America we expected,” Meron, from East Africa, said. “We expect to be protected and be safe – we are political asylum seekers. We have a lot on our minds.”
