NEW YORK — A federal immigration agent shot a Dominican man in the neck while he was riding in a car with a 5-year-old boy Thursday afternoon, officials said. THE Department of Homeland Security said it was seeking to arrest the man as part of a “targeted enforcement operation,” but protesters and local officials decried it as an example of the dangers of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The 28-year-old man, whom municipal police identified as Oscar Belgal, survived and was treated in hospital.
DHS did not describe exactly what led to the shooting, saying only that “during the incident, an ICE officer discharged his weapon” and the man was injured.
But the city’s Police Commissioner, Jessica Tisch, said Belgal was pulling into a parking space when a plainclothes federal officer approached, gun drawn, followed by another federal officer who was also not in uniform. Belgal began moving the car forward, then at least one of the officers fired seven bullets, hitting the man below his left ear, Tisch said at a news conference near the scene of the shooting Thursday evening.
The child was unharmed and was at the home of a relative, said Tisch, who noted that city police were not involved in the operation but heard the gunshots and responded.
DHS said in a statement that it was seeking to arrest a “criminal illegal alien” with a robbery conviction and a history of other arrests. But angry Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the shooting a scandal.
“There is no justification for what we saw today,” Mamdani said. He said the federal agents surrounding the vehicle wore construction vests and masks, making it difficult to identify them as immigration agents.
The mayor, a Democrat, said he spent two hours Thursday night lobbying Republican President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to release the injured man, to no avail, and urging them to end immigration enforcement operations in the city. He said that on Thursday evening, federal authorities removed the man from the hospital and took him away.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, said in a statement that she delivered a similar message to Trump and Mullin by phone.
Videos show aftermath of shooting
The gunfire broke out around 4 p.m. in Marble Hill, a small neighborhood of Manhattan attached to the Bronx.
Tisch said an NYPD security camera recorded some of the events leading up to the shooting, 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 Department of Homeland Security-branded masks and vests. The witnesses, he said, were screaming.
Videos and photos posted on social media showed a man sitting on the ground with his hands behind his back immediately after the shooting. Another video shows New York City police officers picking up Belgal and transporting him into a police vehicle.
Nearby, a damaged car blocked 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 on one of its rear windows.
Lively demonstration and press conference
At a heated news conference at the scene of the shooting Thursday evening, 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 such as Marble Hill. Some other elected officials cursed ICE and Trump, a Republican.
Protesters at the scene chanted: “ICE off our streets now!” » then went to the hospital where the injured man was being treated. A large crowd blocked an intersection at the entrance to the hospital, and as police began setting up barricades for ambulances and other vehicles to pass, some protesters pushed through the barriers and threw water bottles at officers.
Other clashes at the barricades followed and police made some arrests.
Homeland Security blames ‘sanctuary policies’
DHS has complained that its agents “are forced to make blanket community arrests in unpredictable and dangerous environments” when “dangerous illegal aliens” are released. The agency blamed “reckless sanctuary policies” in Democratic-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, then pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and was sentenced to probation, Tisch said, adding that he was later arrested on a drug sales charge that had not yet been resolved. Electronic court records show Belgal pleaded not guilty in the drug case.
ICE agents have fired their weapons during more than a dozen vehicle stops since last year, killing at least four people and injuring others. At the end of September, ICE ordered his officers do not engage in high-speed car chases and only stop the vehicle if they have undergone specific training.
Marble Hill resident Alfred Silva, 38, called on federal agents to identify themselves more clearly, saying one of them was wearing a construction safety vest.
“We need better transparency to understand who we’re dealing with, because anyone on the street can just put on a vest, pull out a gun and pretend to be ICE,” he said.
“I feel like it doesn’t matter if you’re left or right, we need to understand that this shouldn’t happen.”
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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed.
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