A federal immigration agent shot and wounded a man in a largely residential section of New York City on Thursday, eliciting swift rebukes from Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who accused the Trump administration of “terrorizing our city.”
The shooting happened about 4 p.m. in the Marble Hill neighborhood, as agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, tried to arrest the man while he was in a car with a 5-year-old boy believed to be his son in the back seat, Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, said at a news conference late Thursday night.
Ms. Tisch said that a preliminary investigation had determined that at least one ICE agent had fired seven rounds at the car, striking the man, whom she identified as Oscar Belgal, 28, in the neck below the left ear. The child was not injured and was in the care of a family member late Thursday, she said.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the shooting had occurred as the agents tried to arrest an undocumented immigrant with a criminal record. The statement did not name the man or indicate why the agent fired at the car or if he knew there was a child in it.
Mr. Mamdani, speaking at the news conference, called the shooting “an outrage.”
“Tonight, a 5-year-old child sits traumatized and terrified,” the mayor said. “Tonight, millions of our neighbors are wondering whether they will be safe on our streets, in our schools, at their work sites.”
Mr. Mamdani said he had spent two hours on the phone with President Trump and Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, trying unsuccessfully to negotiate the release of Mr. Belgal, who was taken to a nearby hospital after the shooting. Instead, the mayor said, ICE agents put Mr. Belgal in an unmarked vehicle and whisked him away.
The target of the ICE operation was in the United States illegally from the Dominican Republic and had been convicted of grand larceny, the Homeland Security Department statement said. Ms. Tisch said Mr. Belgal had a grand larceny conviction and a drug case pending against him.
The Homeland Security Department said its target had been arrested in New York in December 2023 and released a few days later because of the city’s “reckless” sanctuary policies.
Those policies prohibit New York City authorities from cooperating in the enforcement of federal immigration laws. The Police Department said in its statement that its officers were not involved in the events surrounding the shooting.
An investigation into the shooting was continuing, the Homeland Security Department statement said.
In a statement, Ms. Hochul condemned ICE for shooting “into a vehicle with a 5-year-old inside,” adding that, “By the Grace of God, that child appears to have escaped without physical injury.”
The governor said in a later statement that she, too, had spoken with Mr. Trump and Mr. Mullin about the shooting.
“I expressed outrage on behalf of New Yorkers and urged them to halt ICE enforcement operations in New York,” Ms. Hochul said, adding that she had asked that any body-camera footage of the shooting be released “so we can establish the facts and get to the truth.”
The shooting occurred on West 225th Street about a block from Broadway, where Viely Herrera said she was standing when she heard what she estimated to be five shots.
“It was just bam-bam-bam!” she said. “Everybody was shocked.”
Turning in the direction of the shots, Ms. Herrera said she watched an S.U.V. crash into concrete barriers on the edge of 225th Street. A man came out of the vehicle holding his neck and shouting in Spanish, she said.
She said she saw a young boy in the back of the S.U.V. who was crying. A woman tried to take him from the scene, Ms. Herrera said, but law enforcement officers would not let her.
“I’m so sad for that little boy,” she said. “That all happened right in front of him.”
ICE has increased pressure on its agents to make arrests across the United States in recent months, resulting in a surge that has largely occurred outside the public eye.
Arrests by ICE agents in New York State soared from 927 in May to 1,193 in June and 1,567 in July, according to federal data compiled by the Deportation Data Project, an academic group.
At least two dozen people have been shot at by federal immigration agents involved in President Trump’s deportation campaign since he took office in January 2025. Six people have been fatally shot amid the ICE crackdown, including three U.S. citizens.
Traffic stops have been central to the surge in arrests since the summer. In July, traffic stops in Houston and Biddeford, Maine, ended with ICE agents fatally shooting people, casting a harsh spotlight on the agency’s tactics.
Marble Hill, a geographic curiosity, is considered either part of Upper Manhattan or at the Bronx’s southern edge. The shooting occurred along a strip of small stores and restaurants as people made their way home from work or accompanied their children home from school in the late afternoon sunshine.
Ms. Tisch gave the following account of the events surrounding the shooting:
The police received 911 calls at 4:04 p.m. of a person shot and shots fired. The calls coincided roughly with one from a federal agent requesting the Fire Department and then asking for the police.
At the time, Mr. Belgal was inside a gray Honda with the 5-year-old in the back. A Police Department surveillance camera captured the car backing into a parking space in front of a fire hydrant as a plainclothes federal law enforcement officer approached the driver’s side window with his gun drawn.
Another plainclothes federal officer also approached the vehicle near the driver’s side. At that point, the vehicle began to move forward and left the camera’s view.
Officers responding to an unrelated call nearby heard the report about shots being fired and responded to the shooting scene. There, they encountered several men, some of whom were dressed in construction-style vests and face masks and at least one of whom had a long gun. They also found Mr. Belgal handcuffed and pinned to the ground, and took him to the hospital.
A video filmed by a bystander showed New York City officers arriving at the scene, picking up the wounded man as the ICE agents stand by, and carrying him toward Broadway and the NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital a few blocks away.
A photo from the shooting site shows a bullet hole in the driver’s side of the windshield of a gray vehicle. Ms. Tisch said the back windshield had also been shattered. As of 9 p.m., the vehicle remained in the street.
“There is no justification for what we have seen today,” Mr. Mamdani said. “And we know that what we have seen here today is a microcosm of what ICE does across this country on a daily basis. How can that be how we describe public safety? It can’t be.”
Justin Miranda, who lives near the shooting scene, said he was in his home when he heard five shots ring out just after 4 p.m. He said he ran outside and down the block toward the Marble Hill Metro-North Station.
There, he said, he saw several law enforcement officers in the street who appeared to be federal agents. He pulled out his phone and began recording.
One of the agents was standing next to a man who was sitting in the street near a vehicle, Mr. Miranda said. The man appeared to be bleeding from around his shoulder and neck, Mr. Miranda said, and was handcuffed behind his back, and was yelling in Spanish.
“The guy looked hurt,” he said. “He was alert, but definitely wounded.”
By 7 p.m., a crowd of protesters was growing at the shooting site. The Rev. Emily DeTar Birt, a Unitarian minister, was among them.
“I have lived in this neighborhood for 10 years,” she said, choking up as she spoke. “There are a number of high schools here, a charter school and at least three day cares. This is happening in broad day light in front of our kids.”
Several dozen protesters had also gathered outside the Allen Hospital.
Danielle Herbert-Guggenheim, who lives in the Bronx and is a teacher at Public School 200, said it was critical for immigrants, especially children, to feel supported by the city.
“It is so important that we inform and really teach and educate people to understand immigrants are not the problem,” Ms. Herbert-Guggenheim said.
Tensions began to rise as the protest outside the hospital stretched into the night, with protesters and police officers scuffling as the officers tried to put up barricades to establish a clear path to and from the building’s entrance.
Protesters chanted “No justice, no peace, we want ICE off our streets,” and some hurled water bottles at the police. At least one person was taken into custody.
The shooting appeared to be the first by ICE in the city since 2020.
Miles G. Cohen, Maria Cramer, Ana Ley, Chelsia Rose Marcius, Oishika Neogi, Nate Schweber and Jeremy White contributed reporting.
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