A federal immigration agent shot and wounded a man inside his car Thursday afternoon in Marble Hill, the sliver of Manhattan perched on the Bronx mainland, as a 5-year-old boy believed to be his son sat in the back seat.
At a late-night press conference, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch identified the man as Oscar Belgal, 28. At least one U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fired seven rounds into the gray Honda, striking Belgal in the neck below his left ear, Tisch said, CNN reported. The child escaped physical injury and is now in the care of family members.
Belgal is being held in an ICE detention facility outside New York, and the agency intends to deport him as swiftly as possible, according to ICE Executive Associate Director Marcos Charles.
What happened
The shooting unfolded shortly after 4 p.m. on West 225th Street, about a block from Broadway, as residents made their way home from work and school. NYPD surveillance footage shows Belgal backing into a parking space as a plainclothes federal officer approached the driver’s side window with his gun drawn, Tisch said. A second officer closed in near the headlight. The car then lurched forward and out of frame, and the camera never captured the gunfire.
Witnesses heard approximately five shots before the SUV crashed into concrete barriers, per The New York Times. Police recovered seven shell casings at the scene, along with the car, which bore a bullet hole in its front windshield and a shattered rear window.
Charles offered a starkly different account, claiming Belgal refused orders to exit the car, rammed two government vehicles, and “weaponized his vehicle” against officers. The Trump administration has invoked that phrase repeatedly to justify agent shootings, though a Guardian analysis published in July found most such claims unraveled under scrutiny. A law enforcement source told CNN two agents were injured during the encounter.
DHS alleged Belgal has gang ties but furnished no evidence. Tisch said Belgal pleaded guilty to fourth-degree grand larceny following a 2023 robbery arrest and faces a pending 2025 drug case.
Homeland Security Investigations has since assumed control of the investigation, sidelining the NYPD.
The response
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) said he spent two hours on the phone with President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin pressing for Belgal’s release, to no avail. The mayor said the agents wore construction vests and masks, leaving residents with “no reasonable way to identify them as ICE agents.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said she also spoke with Trump and Mullin, urged them to halt ICE enforcement in New York, and called for the release of any body-camera footage. Local officials, including Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan), are pressing the state attorney general to open an independent investigation.
By evening, crowds had converged on the scene and outside NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, where Belgal was first treated. Protesters scuffled with officers erecting barricades outside the hospital, and police took at least one person into custody.
The shooting appears to be ICE’s first in the city since February 2020, when an agent shot a man in the face during an attempted arrest in Gravesend, Brooklyn.
Thursday’s shooting arrives amid an aggressive enforcement surge. ICE arrests in New York state climbed from 927 in May to 1,567 in July, according to Deportation Data Project figures cited by the Times, and CNN reported that agency leadership instructed agents this week to boost arrests by 1,000 people a day nationwide.
Federal immigration agents have fired on at least two dozen people since Trump returned to office in January 2025, killing six, including three U.S. citizens, according to the Times.
