It was just after 4 p.m. on Thursday, in the Marble Hill section of Manhattan with school just getting out and the streetscape was filled with kids and parents. It was in that setting that 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, in his Honda CR4, was confronted by masked ICE agents including one with a long gun.
Several shots were fired apparently into the car, wounding Belgal in the neck and below his left ear. Incredibly, Belgal’s five year old son in the back seat was not hit.
The shooting sparked a massive protest turnout that reverberated throughout Mayor Mamdani’s press briefing.
ICE and DHS assert Belgal tried to use his car as a weapon after refusing the ICE officers commands to exit his vehicle and then accelerating into the ICE units.
According to FDNY EMS sources, it took EMS eight minutes to arrive and Belgal had already been taken to the hospital by the NYPD, according to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
“The officers, using their training and believing that their lives, the lives of their partners and the general public were in danger, fired their weapons,” Marcos Charles, the acting executive associate director for Homeland Security Investigations told reporters.
“Mr. Belgal was struck by one of the bullets or fragments superficially in the neck. He stopped his vehicle. We arrested him, rendered first aid, and then took him to the hospital.”
Historically, DHS and ICE hot takes after these kinds of incidents, of which there have been many, don’t holdup under scrutiny like the variation between the federal narrative and the NYPD on who actually rendered first aid and drove Belgal to the hospital.
Across the country, allegations of ICE withholding medical aid and access to medications has been well documented. In-custody deaths and a spate of fatal shootings have had the agency under intense scrutiny.
“NYPD Argus cameras captured the victim backing into a parking spot in front of a fire hydrant right behind me,” recounted Tisch at an impromptu press briefing. “At that time, one plainclothes federal law enforcement officer approaches the driver's side window with his gun drawn. Another plainclothes officer also approaches the vehicle by the driver's side headlight. The vehicle then starts to move forward and goes out of camera view. The Argus cameras do not capture the discharge.”
Tisch continued. “Members of the NYPD's 50th Precinct Conditions Team were responding to an unrelated call nearby when they heard the report of shots fired, and they responded to that scene. When they arrived, they encountered several men in various forms of attire, including some in construction-style vests, face masks and at least one carrying a long gun.”
“Our officers also encountered the injured individual, handcuffed and seated on the ground,” Tisch told reporters. “Our officers immediately placed him into an NYPD vehicle and rendered aid. They transported him to New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, where he arrived in stable condition. Our officers' actions were captured on body-worn camera.”
Belgal is in stable condition and remains in ICE custody despite a direct phone appeal from Mayor Mamdani to President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Mark Mullin who described the victim as a “criminal, a thug, a gangbanger, and a possible murderer,” Mullin told reporters.
DHS claims Belgal was arrested by the NYPD on Dec. 7, 2023, but released days later due to the city’s sanctuary policies and subsequently eluded capture last month.
“Let me say this plainly: What happened today was an outrage,” Mayor Mamdani told reporters. “Tonight, a 5-year-old child sits traumatized and terrified. Tonight, millions of our neighbors are wondering whether they will be safe on our streets, in our schools, at their work sites. Tonight, New Yorkers across the five boroughs are asking whether their civil liberties will be respected, whether law and order is supposed to look like a man carrying a long gun, wearing a mask.”
Mamdani continued. “We know that ICE is rotten to its core. Today's shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known: that ICE operates with impunity, that they sow chaos and terror across our country, that they have killed far more of our neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save.”
This latest ICE shooting comes at a time when New York City’s murder rate, once over 2,000 a year has fallen to 305 last year, and could go lower this year.
“We will not normalize ICE's viciousness. We will not accept its cruelty,” pledged Mamdani. “New York City will not stand by while ICE agents shoot New Yorkers. And we will not back down from the demand that so many, including myself, have put forward time and again. This is an agency that must be abolished.”
