PROVIDENCE — Luis R. Mercado, who faces criminal charges in a two-year-old shooting that figured into the shutdown of a nightclub, has been rearrested and charged with a recent murder near the Hartford Park public housing development.

Mercado allegedly fled to Oklahoma to avoid apprehension in the murder, but was caught Thursday afternoon by U.S. marshals, the city police and state troopers as he stood in the doorway of a Hartford Park apartment.

The police said yesterday that on June 25, Mercado shot to death Virgilio Rojo, 17, amid heightened tensions between people associated with Hartford Park and others associated with the Manton Heights public housing development. Mercado, 37, is from Hartford Park and Rojo lived in the vicinity of Manton Heights, according to Detective Capt. Hugh T. Clements Jr.

The suspect was arraigned in District Court yesterday morning on a charge of murder and two firearms offenses. No plea was entered, and he was ordered held without bail at the Adult Correctional Institutions.

Mercado, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, listened to the translation of a Spanish-language interpreter as an assistant attorney general read the charges against him. He was ordered not to have contact with the family of his alleged victim.

Clements declined to be specific about Mercado’s alleged motive in Rojo’s slaying.

“The investigation of this homicide was thorough and deliberate and, as a result, successful,” the captain said. “At times there have been sporadic incidents of violence between subjects from Hartford Park and Manton Heights. The details of those will be exposed during future court proceedings.”

A criminal trial already was pending for Mercado, who is charged with five counts, including felony assault, in the shooting in July 2006 of Victor Cortes in the parking lot of the short-lived Giza nightclub in an old mill building down the street from Hartford Park. The 26-year-old Cortes, of Providence, was shot in the head and seriously injured.

Although the police filed charges against Mercado in the Cortes shooting, the attorney general’s office dismissed the case last year. There was additional preparation and the charges were refiled in January, but Mercado was allowed to remain free on bail.

There were three brawls and then the shooting of Cortes during “Reggaeton Madness” night at Giza on July 28-29, 2007, and the city Board of Licenses took away Giza’s licenses as a result. The club unsuccessfully fought for its licenses and never was able to reopen.

A fugitive task force had been searching for Mercado since the fatal shooting of Rojo 7½ weeks ago in the street near 124 Eastwood Ave. At the time the police gave Rojo’s address as 470 Manton Ave., which is a Manton Heights apartment building.

Deputy U.S. Marshal C.J. Wyant said Mercado fled to Tulsa, Okla., about a week after the slaying. As the marshals were setting up surveillance, however, they lost track of their quarry, he said.

Law enforcement authorities then reestablished surveillance at Hartford Park, and as they interviewed people about Mercado’s whereabouts, they saw him in the doorway of 16 Bodell Ave., and he was arrested without resistance.

“We were always getting close, but never close enough,” Wyant said yesterday. “And then we walk into the apartment and the door is open? After all that work …”

bjeffers@projo.com