Mayor Zohran Mamdani called for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to leave New York City after police say a federal immigration agent shot and wounded a man in front of his 5-year-old son.
An ICE agent fired seven rounds into a car, striking 28-year-old Oscar Belgal in the neck below his left ear, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press conference Thursday night. The child inside the car is safe and with a family member, Tisch said.
Belgal was treated at a hospital but Mamdani said ICE removed him just before the press conference.
“For the past two hours, I have been on the phone with President [Donald] Trump and [Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne] Mullin, negotiating the release of the man ICE agents shot,” Mamdani said Thursday night. “Those negotiations were unsuccessful. Just moments ago, ICE put the man in an unmarked vehicle and whisked him away.”
Trending
In the hours after the shooting, the mayor, in an X post, called to “abolish ICE” and labeled the event “unconscionable.”
The Department of Homeland Security wrote in a post on X that ICE agents were conducting a “targeted enforcement operation” when an officer “discharged his weapon” and injured a man, who the department said was an unauthorized immigrant from the Dominican Republic.
Belgal has two prior arrests in New York City. He received five years probation for a robbery in 2023 and has a pending case for criminal sale of a controlled substance, Tisch said.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on X that she had spoken with Trump and Mullin but did not say whether they had committed to her requests to halt immigration enforcement operations in the state.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-New York) said on X that ICE denied him access from Belgal’s hospital room. The man’s family was also denied visitation, Espaillat said.
Hochul said she expected federal officials to “provide a full and transparent accounting” of the shooting. Espaillat demanded in a post on X that all footage be preserved and unaltered.
The White House referred The Sun to DHS’s statement.
This story has been updated with further information from city officials’ press conference.
Authors
