Man shot and wounded by ICE agents during operation in New York City while in car with 5-year-old
Tensions flared between protesters and NYPD officials at the scene of a shooting involving ICE agents on October 8.
By John Miller, Julianna Bragg and Mark Morales, CNN
(CNN) — A man from the Dominican Republic was shot and wounded by federal immigration agents during a targeted enforcement operation in the Bronx on Thursday, according to officials, marking the first shooting involving ICE agents in New York City since President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The shooting occurred just after 4 p.m. when an ICE agent discharged a weapon into the man’s vehicle, which also had a 5-year-old sitting in the back seat, New York City officials said late Thursday.
The man’s injuries, including a graze wound to the neck, were not considered life-threatening, and police transported him to the hospital, a law enforcement source told CNN. The 5-year-old was not injured, the source said.
“Thank God that child is physically unharmed,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told reporters late Thursday, expressing outrage over the shooting.
The man wounded was identified as 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, said NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
Mamdani said he had spoken to Trump and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to negotiate the man’s release, but “those negotiations were unsuccessful,” and the man has been taken from the NYPD into ICE custody.
Federal authorities have not explained what led up to the shooting of the 28-year-old.
The shooting comes the same week as ICE leadership told agents to increase arrests by 1,000 more people daily, according to two sources familiar with the verbal directive — a move by the Trump administration to double down on its immigration promises despite some Republican unease over who the agency is targeting.
The Department of Homeland Security said the man has ties to the Trinitarios gang, a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny and prior arrests for assault, robbery, drug possession and weapons possession.
DHS said agents immediately provided aid after the man was shot.
Two agents were also injured in the encounter, according to a law enforcement source, and are also being treated at a local hospital. One of the agents may have been injured in a car accident, though it’s unclear if the accident was part of the attempted arrest or response, according to a federal official.
Speaking Thursday, Mamdani said ICE agents surrounded the man’s vehicle. “They wore construction vests and masks that concealed their faces. There was no reasonable way to identify them as ICE agents,” he told reporters.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said authorities believe the 5-year-old was the man’s son. He was located safe and in the care of family members, she said.
According to Tisch, citing NYPD camera video of the incident, the man was backing into a parking spot when “one plainclothes federal law enforcement officer approaches the driver’s side window with his gun drawn. Another plainclothes officer also approaches the vehicle by the driver’s side headlight. The vehicle then starts to move forward and goes out of camera view,” adding the camera did not capture the gun being discharged.
“Based on evidence collected at the scene, we know that at least one ICE agent discharged 7 rounds, striking the driver in the neck below his left ear,” Tisch said.
NYPD officers responded and encountered several men in construction-style attire, face masks and at least one carrying a gun, she said, and the injured man handcuffed and seated on the ground. The man was placed in a NYPD vehicle and taken to a hospital, he said.
CNN asked DHS whether the officers involved were wearing body cameras. The agency referred CNN back to its original statement, which made no mention of body cameras.
At the time of the shooting, witnesses reported to police they saw a man dressed in a bright yellow construction vest holding a gun. Witnesses also told officers they heard five to six gunshots and people screaming, according to police officials.
Video purportedly from the scene shows a man matching that description holding a semi-automatic rifle and wearing an ICE badge around his neck.
NYPD were not involved in the incident in the Marble Hill neighborhood just north of Manhattan, the department said in a statement. After the shooting, NYPD officials called for a mobilization to deal with crowd control and evidence at the scene.
Hours after the shooting, agents with Homeland Security Investigations and police officers could be seen walking behind yellow police tape as a group of protesters started gathering at the scene.
Video from Thursday evening appears to show a tow truck removing the man’s vehicle, which has a gunshot hole through the windshield, from the scene.
HSI responded to the scene to take over the investigation of the shooting, according to a federal source, similar to the law enforcement response to the September 20 ICE shooting in Austin, Texas, which left a man from Venezuela wounded.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday said she also spoke with Trump and Mullin about the incident.
“I expressed outrage on behalf of New Yorkers and urged them to halt ICE enforcement operations in New York,” Hochul wrote in a post on X.
“I also asked that any body camera footage of the shooting be released to the public so we can establish the facts and get to the truth,” she added.
Local leaders and city council members joined the governor’s call in demanding DHS release all available body camera footage and for the state attorney general’s office to launch an independent investigation into the shooting during a Thursday night news conference.
“We want justice for this family, we want it for this neighborhood,” New York Rep. Adriano Espaillat said at a news conference. “And as I said before, I say today, we need to get rid of ICE.”
“Whether you’re in the Bronx or Manhattan, whether you’re documented or not, whether the color of your skin or your religion, you are a New Yorker first, … and New Yorkers stand up for New Yorkers,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal said.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Maria Aguilar Prieto, Gloria Pazmino, Shimon Prokupecz, Carolyn Sung, Taylor Galgano, August Phillips and Amanda Jackson also contributed to this report.
