The illegal migrant gunned down by federal ICE agents during a chaotic standoff in the Bronx terrorized his former neighbors with a machete — and one terrified resident said Saturday he was relieved the accused gangbanger was finally taken off the streets.
Oscar Belgal, 28, a native of the Dominican Republic who authorities say has ties to the bloodthirsty Trinitarios street gang, wreaked havoc in the Washington Heights apartment building where he lived until about a year ago, according to a former neighbor.
“He is a menace to society,” the shaken resident said of Belgal – whom Mayor Mamdani outrageously referred to as a “New Yorker” whose release he tried to negotiate while lashing out at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I talked to him once and I said, ‘Listen, you need to be more submissive because I see you acting too reckless’… He thought he was a tough guy,” the resident told the Post.
The former neighbor, a man originally from the Dominican Republic who declined to give his name for safety reasons, recalled one of Belgal’s most unhinged crises while he lived there — during which he pulled a machete on another resident’s nephew.
He claimed Belgal — who federal authorities say infiltrated the United States with a caravan of migrants in 2022 without encountering Border Patrol — pulled out the massive blade during a scuffle with the man outside the building last year. No one was seriously injured during the altercation, he added.
Belgal’s criminal record includes a 2023 armed robbery conviction and an August 2025 arrest for allegedly selling deadly drugs like fentanyl, cocaine and heroin.
Those cases were not eligible for bail — so Belgal was released after his arrest, although prosecutors were granted the highest level of “supervised release,” sources said. He reportedly told authorities he was not part of a gang and pleaded not guilty in the case, which remains open.
ICE asked local authorities to turn him over after the 2025 arrest, but the request was not honored due to New York’s sanctuary laws.
Agents first attempted to arrest Belgal in September, but he evaded capture, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Here’s the latest on the Bronx ICE shooting:
“They were looking for him. It seems he had a case going on; immigration goes after people who have committed crimes,” said the neighbor, who claimed Belgal avoided ICE by running down one of the building’s two emergency exits. “Immigration is just doing their job. They are going after those who have committed crimes.”
Belgal’s attorney did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
His most recent run-in with the law occurred Thursday when two plainclothes ICE agents, guns drawn, approached the front left side of the gray Honda CR-V he was driving as he backed out of a parking space on 225th Street in Marble Hill in the Bronx.
One of them hit and broke the glass in the driver’s side window. Marcos Charles, chief of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, said Belgal “accelerated” toward the agents, “running over” two of them, which was not captured on video surveillance footage obtained by The Post on Friday.
Officers caught up with Belgal about half a block away on Marble Hill Ave, outside the C&G Gourmet Deli, before bullets rang out and he was shot in the neck, according to New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
Her 5-year-old son, who was in the back seat of the vehicle, was unhurt. Belgal is expected to recover.
On Saturday, protests erupted in Midtown in support of the alleged gang member, with anti-ICE rioters holding signs demanding “justice for Oscar Belgal” and “abolish ICE.” Other posters called for Tisch to be fired.
“He’s putting his son in danger. He’s in legal trouble and yet he’s traveling with his son in the car?” » asked Belgal’s former neighbor, indignant. “No, I don’t think that’s true. If he owes a debt to society, he should pay it… He was a danger to society.”
Another resident was surprised to learn that her former neighbor was wanted by the federal government.
“That might be true, I guess – I’m an older person and I’m not here all the time – but I’ve never heard anything like that about him,” she said.
A third resident seemed more familiar with Belgal, saying, “He wasn’t a hard-working person, I’ll put it that way. He was out on the street doing crazy things.”
Melvin, a neighborhood barber who cuts hair near Belgal’s old apartment, was happy Belgal was arrested.
“It’s a relief that he was apprehended,” he said. “The fact is that when someone is a criminal, they take to the streets to do harm. They don’t care about the lives of others, they only care about what they can gain by hurting others.
“He harmed his own family; he harmed his son, who was in the car with him. He was the one who was shot, but what if the child had been killed?”
After being taken into custody, Belgal was transported to Allen Presbyterian Hospital in New York in stable condition. He was released at 9:58 p.m. and taken by ICE to Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey at 10:43 p.m. He was transported to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn on Friday.
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