Hundreds of protesters gathered in Marble Hill on Oct. 8 after a federal immigration agent shot and injured a Bronx man in his car earlier that afternoon. According to the NYPD, the protest halted traffic just outside NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where the man was being treated and was conscious.
The victim of the shooting, whom NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch identified as Oscar Belgal, 28, was the subject of a targeted enforcement operation by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, according to a statement released by DHS.
At approximately 4 p.m. ICE officers arrested Belgal, who is from the Dominican Republic. According to the DHS statement, he had a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs and weapons possession. He also has associations to the Trinitarios gang, DHS said.
Officials including Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch appeared in front of the crowd to give comments. They were overwhelmingly drowned out by chants including “ICE out of NYC” and “up with reparations, down with deportation,” bolstered with megaphones, homemade signs and deep outrage.
“We know that ICE is rotten to its core,” Mamdani said. “Today’s shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known.”
One ICE agent fired seven rounds and Belgal was struck in the neck, Commissioner Tisch said at a news conference Thursday night. Mamdani said Belgal’s child was in the back seat during the shooting, but was physically unharmed.
“During the arrest, incident, an ICE officer discharged his weapon and the criminal illegal alien was injured. ICE officers immediately rendered aid. The individual is alive and at a local hospital,” DHS said in their statement.
The NYPD released body cam footage of the Thursday shooting on Oct. 9, which showed officers rendering aid to Belgal as he sat on the ground. Officers then carried him into a Black SUV and transported him to the hospital.
“Yesterday, an ICE agent opened fire in Marble Hill. They shot a member of our community in the neck while he was in his car. His five-year-old kid was in a child seat in the back of the car when ICE agents fired at least 7 rounds into it. This was in the middle of the afternoon, with children walking home from school and people heading home from work. Federal agents put every one of them in danger,” said NY-13 Democratic nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier.
“When I was in Marble Hill last night I saw NYPD officers rapidly escalating violence. As I was trying to de-escalate, I was shoved to the ground by an officer,” she said, adding that unmarked law enforcement cars were hitting protestors as NYPD officers pushed people out of it’s path.
In a press conference on Oct. 9, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed they had been tracking Belgal since September when they arrested him but ultimately let him go. Mullin added that ICE agents showed up in an unmarked vehicle because it is standard agency procedure for an active investigation.
“He knew when he fled that officers weren’t going to give up on him,” Mullin said during the press conference.
Officers opened fire on Belgal because, officials claimed, he drove his car into officers’ vehicles and they believed their lives were in danger. The shooting remains under investigation, DHS said.
The ICE agent that shot Belgal currently has six cases open that allege that he used excessive force in the line of duty and that several of his arrests were later found unlawful in federal court. None of his alleged misconduct has resulted in disciplinary action or limitations in his scope of duty.
“We need responsibility and we need people to stand up, to say the truth. To say the truth,” a protester told the Bronx Times. “Because what’s happening in America right now is a disgrace, and it breaks my heart.”
The shooting occurred just two days after select Bronx and upper Manhattan officials sent a letter to the owner of the Shops at Marble Hill urging them to prohibit ICE agents from using their property as a staging area for enforcement activity.
“I mean, this is my community. This is my family,” said Jahzear “Rich” Prince, who attended the protest and grew up in the area. “As a community, these are the things we have to band together for and prevent them from happening again.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul said she also spoke with Trump and Mullin Thursday night, uring them to “halt ICE enforcement operations in New York.”
“We expect federal authorities to provide a full and transparent accounting of the circumstances surrounding this incident,” Hochul said. “New Yorkers deserve to know exactly what happened and why.”
