Mother of man accused of shooting NYPD officers: Where is my granddaughter?

Police say Bernardo Raul Castro Mata shot at two officers.

The mother of a 19-year-old Venezuelan man who allegedly shot two police officers in Queens on Monday told Gothamist that what she worries about more than her son's fate are her 1-year-old granddaughter's whereabouts.

“I don’t know who he left the little girl with,” said Irianeth Mata, the mother of 19-year-old Bernardo Raul Castro Mata, who was in NYPD custody and still awaiting official charges on Tuesday morning.

According to police officials, officers spotted Castro Mata driving a moped the wrong direction on 82nd Street near LaGuardia Airport at around 1:40 a.m. on Monday. When they attempted to pull him over, Castro Mata allegedly opened fire, hitting Officer Christopher Abreu in the leg and Officer Richard Yarusso in his bulletproof vest.

Both were released from Elmhurst Hospital on Monday, and officials said Castro Mata was still being treated on Tuesday for a gunshot wound in the ankle when police returned fire.

Irianeth said her son was always a “rebel” who gave her trouble growing up, and added that her granddaughter's safety was now her primary concern.

“I begged him to leave her with me, but he didn’t want to,” she said in a phone interview. “Her mother abandoned her when she wasn’t even 2 months old – she just left them and went to another country.”

She said her son was born in Venezuela, but the family later moved to Colombia.

“We didn't live well together, because he doesn’t like anyone to tell him anything. He does things the way he wants and at his whim,” she said in Spanish. “He became independent very young, when he was 15.”

When the teen decided to make his way to the United States, Irianeth said he didn’t give her much notice. He just said he wanted to give his daughter a better life, and took little Raulianny with him through the treacherous Darien Gap.

Irianeth said she wasn’t in touch with her son much when he arrived in the United States but she knew he lived in Chicago for a while and worked as a for-hire driver before moving to New York City. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Castro Mata entered the country illegally through Eagle Pass, Texas in July 2023.

“I don’t think he’s been in New York very long,” Irianeth said, adding that she only knew he was living with a woman who was several years older.

Irianeth said she found out her son was involved in an incident while at work at a restaurant in Medellin, where she lives. Someone had called her mother – Castro Mata’s grandmother – with some information.

“My mom really isn’t doing well with the news,” Irianeth said. “The photo they sent — it doesn’t exactly say what happened, it just shows him in the arms of two police officers. I also felt really bad, so I had to go home, I couldn’t work anymore.”

Irianeth said she had no idea what her son was doing in New York City as far as work, and said she never expected him to have a gun. Police officials alleged Monday that he was involved in a string of other robberies in the area.

“I’ve always said that someone who does something wrong has to pay the consequences for what they did,” she said. “And if he has to pay consequences for the acts he committed, he should do that in the United States.”

Castro Mata’s younger siblings still don’t fully understand what happened, Irianeth said, adding that she’s also struggling to grasp all the details.

“On the day he left, he only told my mom that he wanted to give his daughter a better life, he wanted to give her a future, he wanted to work really hard to buy her everything she was lacking here,” she said.

“Now, who did he leave her with? She is practically left with no mother and no father, just up in the air, somewhere in the world," she said. "The only thing I want is for someone to bring her back here to Colombia.”