Key takeaways:
- Oscar Belgal was shot in the neck Thursday in Marble Hill while his five-year-old son was in the car; the child was not physically hurt.
- ICE says Belgal struck two agency vehicles and drove toward officers; Mayor Zohran Mamdani says masked agents surrounded the car before firing.
- Belgal is being held outside New York state, and federal officials say ICE enforcement in New York will continue.
Federal officials defended an immigration officer’s shooting of a man in New York City on Friday, saying agents feared for their lives when his car moved toward them. The man’s five-year-old son was in the back seat, prompting protests and demands from city and state leaders that Immigration and Customs Enforcement stop its operations in New York.
The shooting happened Thursday afternoon in Marble Hill. The man, identified as 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, was struck in the neck. His son was not physically hurt. Belgal received medical care and was later taken to a federal detention facility outside New York state, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not disclose its location.
Marcos Charles, a senior ICE official, said agents approached Belgal to arrest him, but he refused orders to leave his car. Charles said Belgal accelerated, struck two ICE vehicles and then drove toward other officers.
“Our officers, using their training, and believing that their life and the life of their partners in the general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons,” Charles said Friday. Authorities are investigating how many officers fired.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the agents did not know a child was in the car. “We weren’t aware the child was in the car,” he said. Mullin said officers identified themselves and had their body cameras on. Footage of the shooting from those cameras has not been released.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani gave a sharply different account of the encounter, saying agents surrounded Belgal’s car before firing. He said they wore construction vests and masks that concealed their faces, leaving “no reasonable way to identify them as ICE agents.”
The New York Police Department released body-camera footage Friday showing its officers arriving after the shooting. They called for an ambulance, then put Belgal in a police vehicle and took him to a hospital. An armed man wearing a reflective vest appears in the footage. The video does not show the shooting.
DHS said Belgal is from the Dominican Republic and is in the United States illegally. The department cited a grand larceny conviction and prior arrests, and alleged ties to the Trinitarios gang. Mullin said investigators believed Belgal might have direct or indirect knowledge of an earlier shooting of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. According to The Guardian, Belgal was serving five years of probation for felony grand larceny and had a pending drug case.
Mamdani called the shooting “unconscionable and incredibly serious.” He said he spoke with President Donald Trump and Mullin but failed to secure Belgal’s release. “ICE is rotten to its core,” the mayor said, calling for its enforcement actions in the city to end. New York Governor Kathy Hochul also urged an end to the operations and demanded answers about the shooting.
Mullin said ICE would not pause enforcement. He criticized New York’s policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities and said Trump had offered to transfer Belgal to New York police custody if they pursued charges. Mullin said Mamdani declined; CBS News reported that City Hall had not responded to its request for comment on that claim.
Protesters gathered Thursday night near the shooting scene and the hospital, clashing with police. CBS News reported that five people were taken into custody.
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