Man shot and wounded by ICE agents during operation in New York City while in car with 5-year-old
CNN
By John Miller, Julianna Bragg, Mark Morales, Alex Stambaugh, 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. in the Marble Hill neighborhood 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.
Marcos Charles, executive associate director of ICE, said federal officers used vehicles to block the man in, but he refused lawful orders to exit his vehicle. The man allegedly drove his vehicle into two government vehicles and then “weaponized his vehicle” and accelerated toward other officers, Charles said. The officers fired at the man, “believing that their life and the life of their partners and the general public were in danger,” Charles said.
The man had a superficial wound to the neck, and officers arrested him, provided first aid and took him to the hospital, Charles said. He is in a detention facility outside of New York, and ICE plans to try to remove him from the country as soon as possible, Charles said.
The 5-year-old in the vehicle was not injured. “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 and the 5-year-old is believed to be his son, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in the news conference. The child was located safe and is in the care of family members, she said.
Mamdani said he had spoken to Trump and Department of Homeland Security 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.
“I made clear to the president, to the secretary, our request that ICE agents leave the scene entirely, as well as the demand that ICE stop its enforcement actions in New York City. These actions are making the city less safe, they are making the city terrified,” Mamdani said.
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.
DHS 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.
Tisch said Belgal had two prior arrests in New York City, including for robbery in 2023, in which he pleaded guilty to fourth degree grand larceny and received five years probation, and for the criminal sale of a controlled substance in 2025, which is still pending.
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.
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.
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, 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.
“At least seven shell casings were recovered at the scene, along with the victim’s vehicle, which had ballistic damage to the front windshield. The back windshield was also shattered,” Tisch said.
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.
“At this time, federal agents have exercised their authority to take over the investigation,” Tisch said.
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, Karina Tsui also contributed to this report.
