A federal immigration officer shot a Dominican man in the neck as he drove in a car with a 5-year-old boy, officials said.
The Department of Homeland Security said it was seeking to arrest the man in a “targeted enforcement operation”, but protesters and local officials decried it as an example of the dangers of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Agents weren't aware that the man's 5-year-old son was with him in the car when they fired bullets into the vehicle, said Marcos Charles, head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations. New York City police and local court records identified the wounded man as Oscar Belgal.
The child was not hurt. The driver, 28, was shot “superficially” in the neck, Charles said. He was treated at a hospital then released into federal custody.
Officers used their vehicles to block the man as he attempted to drive away, but he accelerated toward them, Charles said during a news conference with US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in Washington.
“Our officers, using their training and believing that their life and the life of the partners and the general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons,” Charles said.
City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Belgal was pulling into a parking space when a federal officer in plainclothes approached with a gun drawn, followed by another federal officer who also wasn't in uniform. Belgal started to pull the car forward, and then at least one of the officers fired seven rounds, hitting the man below his left ear, Tisch said at a news conference near the shooting site late Thursday.
DHS said in a statement that it was seeking to arrest a “criminal illegal alien” with a grand larceny conviction and a history of other arrests. But an irate Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the shooting an outrage.
“There is no justification for what we have seen today,” Mamdani said. He said the federal officers who surrounded the vehicle wore construction vests and masks, making it difficult to identify them as immigration officers.
The mayor, a Democrat, said he had spent two hours pressing Republican President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to release the wounded man, to no avail, and urging them to stop immigration enforcement operations in the city. He said that late Thursday night, federal authorities removed the man from the hospital and took him away.
Governor Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, said in a statement that she had delivered a similar message to Trump and Mullin by phone.
Videos show aftermath of the shooting
The gunfire erupted around 4pm (local time) in Marble Hill, a small part of Manhattan that is attached to the Bronx.
Tisch said that an NYPD security camera had recorded some of the events leading up to the gunfire, but not the shooting itself.
Pedro Almaraz, an employee at a nearby restaurant, said he heard several gunshots and saw a man on the ground surrounded by several officers wearing face masks and vests with Department of Homeland Security branding. Witnesses, he said, were screaming.
Bystander videos and photos posted on social media showed a man sitting on the ground with his hands behind his back, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Another video shows New York City police officers picking up Belgal and carrying him into a police vehicle.
Nearby, a damaged car sat blocking the roadway with small holes in two of its windows. Tisch said the shooting left the car with a bullet entry point on its front windshield and an exit point in one of its rear windows.
Heated protest and press conference
At a heated press conference at the shooting scene Thursday night, several local politicians condemned the shooting.
“We are heartbroken and enraged,” said City Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, a Democrat who emigrated from the Dominican Republic and now represents areas including Marble Hill. Some other elected officials cursed ICE and Trump, a Republican.
Demonstrators at the scene chanted, “ICE off our streets now!” and then marched to the hospital where the injured man was being treated. A sizable crowd blocked an intersection at the hospital entry, and as police began to set barricades so that ambulances and other vehicles could pass, some protesters shoved at the barriers and hurled water bottles at officers.
More clashes at the barricades followed, and police made some arrests.
Homeland Security blames 'sanctuary policies'
DHS complained that its officers “are forced to make arrests at large in the community in unpredictable and dangerous environments” when “dangerous illegal aliens" get released. The agency blamed “reckless sanctuary policies” in Democrat-led areas. There is no clear definition of sanctuary jurisdictions, but the term is generally applied to state and local governments that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Belgal had been arrested on a robbery charge in 2023, later pleaded guilty to grand larceny and was sentenced to probation, Tisch said, adding that he later was arrested on a drug-sale charge that hasn't yet been resolved. Electronic court records show that Belgal has pleaded not guilty in the drug case.
ICE agents have fired their guns during more than a dozen vehicle stops since last year, killing at least four people and wounding others. In late September, ICE ordered its officers not to engage in high-speed car chases and to make vehicle stops only if they have completed specific training.
Marble Hill resident Alfred Silva, 38, called for federal officers to more clearly identify themselves, saying one was wearing a construction safety vest.
“We need to have better transparency to understand who we’re dealing with, because anybody in the street can just put on a vest and pull out a gun and claim to be ICE,” he said.
“I feel like regardless if you’re left or right, we should understand that this shouldn’t be happening.”
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