Leading New York Democrats expressed anger and demanded curbs on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violence after a federal officer shot a man driving a car in which his five-year-old son was sitting, sparking fierce protests.
At least seven shots were reportedly fired and the man was hit in the neck late on Thursday afternoon as children were coming home from school in the busy Marble Hill neighborhood of New York City.
Federal authorities on Friday morning identified Oscar Belgal as the man shot, saying he was undocumented, from the Dominican Republic and had a felony record and gang affiliations.
Marcos Charles, a senior ICE official, said Belgal refused to exit his car when approached by federal officers who were trying to arrest him, and then accelerated, struck two ICE vehicles and drove towards other officers. An ICE officer then shot Belgal and Charles said the wound was “superficial”.
Footage showed a man in a high-visibility construction vest, possibly with a badge on a lanyard, carrying an assault-style rifle and standing close to Belgal, who is sat on the street, while another officer appears to hold a hand to his neck and shoulder area.
New York police officers in uniform shortly afterwards carry the man to an unmarked car and lay him in the back seat, handcuffed behind his back.
But Kathy Hochul, New York’s governor, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York congresswoman, and Zohran Mamdani, the city’s mayor – all of whom are Democrats – led strong condemnation of ICE’s conduct.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, the Democratic New York candidate, rushed to the protests and was knocked over in the chaos as local police and demonstrators clashed.
The wounded man was conscious and hospitalized, authorities said.
Mamdani called the incident “unconscionable” and said on Thursday night that ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), had “whisked him away” from the New York-Presbyterian Allen hospital in upper Manhattan.
A similar incident occurred in Texas last month after a man was shot by an ICE officer in Austin and despite a bullet lodged in his back was taken by the federal authorities from a local hospital to ICE detention about ۱۴۰ miles away.
Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani demanded ICE be abolished.
Both Hochul and Mamdani spoke to Donald Trump and Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, by phone on Thursday night.
“I have been on the phone with President Trump and Secretary Mullin negotiating the release of the man ICE agents shot. Those negotiations were unsuccessful,” Mamdani told a press conference. He demanded from the Trump administration that ICE stop its enforcement actions in New York City. “ICE is rotten to its core,” he said.
ICE has been stepping up arrests all year despite withdrawing massed militarized ranks from Minneapolis in January and adopting a more covert approach to enforcement.
Both Hochul and Mamdani demanded that ICE cease enforcement operations in New York and the governor said she expressed outrage to the Trump administration on behalf of all New Yorkers. Hochul added that the incident could easily have ended in tragedy.
“No child should ever have to experience the terror of gunfire,” she said. The child was being looked after by his family on Friday.
The streets where the shooting and protests took place were calm on Friday morning but many residents remained shocked and angry.
“Here’s an innocent child that was caught in the crossfire,” said Calvin Hayden, a south Bronx native. “That child could have been killed.” Hayden heard about the shooting the night before and said he was immediately disturbed. He came to Marble Hill, the northernmost part of Manhattan, to see the aftermath.
“I don’t believe ICE has any reason or right to be in New York City,” he said, adding he thought New York was already equipped on its own to handle immigration disputes without ICE presence.
“There’s a lot of individuals who are not committing crimes and they just want to make a better life for themselves,” he said.
Some drivers on ۲۲۵th Street yelled anti-ICE sentiments as they drove past the scene.
Mullin said on Friday morning that the ICE officers involved in the shooting did not know there was a child in the vehicle and defended the agency’s actions. But he pointed out that Belgal would have obviously known the child was in his car when he drove it at officers. The exact sequence of events leading up to the shooting have not yet become clear.
Mullin said that Hochul had asked the DHS for a pause on enforcement in New York.
“No, we are not putting a pause on enforcement,” he said.
Mullin criticized New York’s “sanctuary” policies, which restrict how much city agencies and police cooperate with immigration authoritie.
Belgal, ۲۸, has prior convictions, was serving five years of probation for felony grand larceny and was also arrested on drug charges in ۲۰۲۵, a case that is still pending, according to the New York police department.
“What happened today was an outrage,” Mamdani said late on Thursday, adding: “When ICE agents opened fire, a five-year-old child – a five-year-old child! – was in the back seat of that car. Thank God that child is physically unharmed.”
Witnesses told local media they heard the child yelling at the officers after the shooting. At least ۲۰ people have been shot by federal immigration agents under the second Trump administration, as well as a rise in deaths in detention.
“ICE is a rogue, lawless and paramilitary surveillance agency. It does not belong in New York City and it should not exist in the United States of America. Abolish ICE,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement.
The representative also condemned the retail company Target for allowing federal enforcement teams to use its parking lots as staging areas from which to launch arrest operations.
Protesters held signs saying:“Jail all killer ICE agents” and “Leave our neighbors alone.”
“ICE, get the fuck out of our neighborhood,” shouted Vanessa Gibson, Bronx borough president. “I’m angry that we have to be here … We are a working-class community. We don’t deserve this type of treatment from the White House.” She encouraged the crowd to get involved in opposing ICE, saying: “There are more of us than there are of them. I want this to be a moment that we turn into a movement.”
Protesters gathered at the hospital where Belgal was taken. The police set up barricades and protesters quickly clashed with officers in a chaotic scene.
Demonstrators banged drums and shouted: “Shut it down,” and “ICE out!” as cars driving by honked in support.
Standing outside the hospital, Murad Awawdeh, the president of the New York Immigration Coalition, said he wanted to see an independent investigation into the shooting led by New York officials.
“The pain that you’re witnessing is people who are witnessing their neighbors, their family members, their friends being ripped away,” he said.
ICE has arrested more than ۱۹,۵۰۰ people in New York and nearly ۱۸,۰۰۰ in New Jersey during the second Trump administration, mostly Latin American immigrant men without criminal histories, Gothamist reported earlier this week using government data, adding that those totals were more than double the number of such arrests in the last ۱۸ months of the Biden administration.
Lex McMenamin and Joanna Walters contributed reporting
