Oscar Belgal often repaired friends’ cars as he listened to reggaeton and hip-hop on Marble Hill Avenue, a bustling street on the border of Manhattan and the Bronx.
He was there early Sunday morning when Carlos Veloz, a taxi driver who lives in the neighborhood, saw him as Mr. Veloz returned home from work.
Mr. Belgal was leaning over the engine of an S.U.V. with its hood open as dawn broke on a cloudy day, and nodded hello at Mr. Veloz.
“He was fine,” Mr. Veloz said, adding that Mr. Belgal never caused problems.
On Thursday afternoon, four days later, Mr. Belgal was on Marble Hill Avenue again, sitting in the middle of the street, his hands handcuffed behind his back and his neck bleeding from a gunshot wound, surrounded by officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
On Friday, as investigators scoured the neighborhood, Mr. Belgal’s neighbors said they knew little of his criminal history, which Trump administration officials used to paint him as a dangerous undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic.
But details of what happened on Thursday began to emerge on Friday. Officers had stopped his car as he drove his 5-year-old son home from school. As the boy sat in the backseat, officers in plain clothes surrounded the car, Mr. Belgal accelerated and at least one of the officers fired seven shots, according to Jessica S. Tisch, the commissioner of the New York Police Department. Federal officials said that Mr. Belgal refused their order to get out of his car, then sped into two government vehicles.
The officers shot at Mr. Belgal in self-defense, federal officials said on Friday. The Bronx Defenders, who are representing Mr. Belgal, declined to comment on the specific charges at issue in this case, but said in a statement that they were “not surprised” by the actions of the ICE officers.
“A family just trying to go about their everyday lives faced terror and violence at the hands of ICE in Marble Hill,” they said, adding, “ICE’s brutality is emblematic of what the people we represent endure daily — from violent arrests in our communities to neglect and dehumanization in ICE detention.”
New York City police officers, who are prohibited from participating in federal immigration enforcement, came to the scene on Thursday after hearing a report of shots fired on Marble Hill Avenue. They found Mr. Belgal bleeding, took him into one of their S.U.V.s and drove him directly to the hospital, according to body-camera video the Police Department released on Friday.
Mr. Belgal, who was discharged from the hospital on Thursday evening, is now at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
One of his lawyers said a bullet is still lodged in his body and he is in pain.
Arianna Montero, the mother of Mr. Belgal’s 5-year-old son, said the child had been “traumatized” by the shooting and has not spoken since it happened.
“He’s having nightmares,” Ms. Montero said in a brief phone call in Spanish on Friday. “He went through something he shouldn’t have gone through.”
Mr. Belgal’s criminal record showed a string of arrests for drug dealing and larceny.
In February 2025, according to court records, he sold cocaine, fentanyl and crack cocaine to an undercover detective on Wadsworth Avenue in the Fort George neighborhood of Manhattan, where a neighbor said he once lived with his girlfriend and an infant.
He pleaded not guilty to 11 charges of criminal sale of a controlled substance after being accused of engaging in multiple drug sales over at least six months. The case remains open.
In 2023, Mr. Belgal was arrested and charged with robbery. He later pleaded guilty to grand larceny and received five years of probation.
On Friday morning, federal officials described Mr. Belgal as an undocumented “thug” with associations to a gang — known as the Trinitarios — that was connected to the shooting of an off-duty customs officer in Manhattan last year.
Markwayne Mullin, the secretary of Homeland Security, said Mr. Belgal “has either indirect or direct knowledge of the shooting.”
“That’s why he became a target,” Mr. Mullin said.
After he was arrested, Mr. Belgal told ICE officers that he was not affiliated with any gangs, according to internal federal records obtained by The New York Times.
Federal officers had tried to arrest him on Sept. 18, but he ran away and escaped into a building, according to the internal federal records.
On Thursday, Mr. Mullin said, “We had taken all precautions to keep him from fleeing.”
Mr. Mullin said the officers who fired at Mr. Belgal on Thursday did not know a child was in the backseat.
Many elected officials in New York condemned the actions of federal officers, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Mr. Belgal’s criminal record surprised some residents of Marble Hill Avenue, where Mr. Belgal was often seen walking with his son.
“Nice kid,” said Zachary Miller, a resident, of Mr. Belgal. “Very nice-mannered.”
Mr. Belgal was friendly, called Mr. Miller “O.G.” and pet Mr. Miller’s pit bull, Coco.
Crystal Hawkins, president of a tenants association on Marble Hill Avenue, described Mr. Belgal as something of a nuisance.
“Not a menace — annoying,” said Ms. Hawkins, 63, who has lived in the neighborhood for 49 years.
She did not like that he drank and smoked marijuana on the sidewalks with his friends, blasting music late at night.
But he would listen when you asked him to turn it down, Ms. Hawkins said.
“What happened to him was not right,” she said. “He did not deserve that.”
Hurubie Meko and Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
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