An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and wounded a man in a residential New York City neighborhood Thursday afternoon during what the agency called a “targeted enforcement operation.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, calling the incident an “outrage,” said the man was in a vehicle with a 5-year-old child at the time.
“School had just gotten out. The street was crowded with families and children. When the ICE agent opened fire, a 5-year-old child … was in the back seat of the car,” Mamdani said in a late-night press conference on Thursday. “Thank God that child is physically unharmed.”
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the 28-year-old man who was shot was taken to the hospital with a gunshot to the neck below his left ear and arrived in stable condition. She said the boy, who authorities believe to be the man’s son, was safe and in the care of a family member.
DHS says shooting happened during ‘targeted enforcement operation’
The shooting occurred around 4 p.m. ET in the upper Manhattan neighborhood of Marble Hill, the NYPD said.
During a news conference Friday, Marcos Charles, DHS’s executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations, said that ICE officers attempted to arrest the suspect, Oscar Belgal, a Dominican national who had an ICE detainer, and used their vehicles to block Belgal.
Charles said Belgal has alleged associations with the Trinitarios gang and has a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny and “multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs, and weapons possession.”
He alleged that the gang was involved in a shooting of a CBP officer two years ago and Belgal had knowledge of the incident.
Charles alleged that Belgal “weaponized his vehicle” and smashed it into ICE vehicles.
“Our officers, using their training, and believing that their life and the life of their partners and the general public were in danger, and fired weapons,” Charles said.
Belgal was struck in the neck and ICE agents rendered aid before he was transported to the hospital, Charles said. He was later moved to a detention facility outside New York, according to Charles.
Charles said that DHS would pursue several criminal charges.
“We will continue to place him in removal proceedings, and we will continue to try to remove him from this country as quickly as possible following his charges,” he said.
When asked about the child in the car, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said ICE officers were not aware the 5-year-old was in the car during the car stop. Mullin blamed Belgal for putting the 5-year-old in that situation.
“The focus on what took place is absolutely absurd,” he said.
Officers were wearing body-worn cameras, according to Mullin, and the body-worn cameras were on.
Mullin did not commit to releasing the footage and said there is a joint FBI and HSI investigation into the shooting underway.
NYPD: ICE officer fired 7 rounds
At the press conference Thursday night with the mayor, Tisch said the man who was shot has two prior arrests in New York City, including one for robbery in 2023 to which he pleaded guilty to grand larceny and another in 2025 for the criminal sale of a controlled substance, which is still pending.
Tisch said the NYPD, which had no involvement in the shooting, responded to the scene after the shooting, finding several men in “various forms of attire,” including some in construction-style vests, face masks and at least one carrying a long gun.
She said when officers arrived, the man who was shot was handcuffed and seated on the ground before NYPD officers placed him in one of their vehicles, rendered aid and took him to the hospital.
Evidence collected from the scene indicates at least one ICE agent fired seven rounds, Tisch said. There was ballistic damage to the windshield of the man’s vehicle, a Honda CR-V, and the back window was also shattered.
The moments leading up to the shooting were captured on NYPD surveillance cameras, Tisch said.
The video shows the man backing into a parking spot near a fire hydrant before a plainclothes federal law enforcement officer approaches the driver’s side door with his gun drawn, Tisch said. Another plainclothes officer approaches by the driver’s side headlight, she said.
The vehicle then starts to drive away and goes out of camera view, Tisch said. The NYPD cameras did not capture the shooting itself, she said.
An ICE vehicle, a gray four-door sedan, had damage to the front panel and the lower panel was fully disconnected, Tisch said.
The NYPD released body camera footage of their officers responding to the scene after the shooting. The footage showed the suspect sitting on the street as he was being treated for his wound.
Bystanders are seen in the video shouting and cursing at the federal officers.
Mamdani said he spent 2 hours on phone with Trump, Mullin
At the press conference Thursday, Mamdani said he spent two hours on the phone with President Donald Trump and Mullin seeking to negotiate the release of the man who was shot.
But he said his efforts were not successful.
In a statement late Thursday night, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she had also spoken with Trump and the DHS secretary about the shooting.
“I expressed outrage on behalf of New Yorkers and urged them to halt ICE enforcement operations in New York,” Hochul said. “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.”
City officials have been told that ICE has been using a nearby Target parking lot on 225th Street as a staging area.
Protesters gathered in the hours following the shooting, some holding anti-ICE signs, as law enforcement worked the scene.
Later, hundreds of protesters gathered outside New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in upper Manhattan, where the man who was shot was being treated.
Mullin chastised the mayor and protesters during a news conference Friday.
“It’s shameful that you have a mayor that puts criminals above law-abiding citizens,” he said.
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