ICE continues be out of control. Thursday afternoon in Marble Hill was supposed to be the part of the day when parents grab their kids, deal with homework, and figure out dinner. Instead, a quiet block turned into a legit crime scene.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and wounded a man in a residential New York City neighborhood Thursday afternoon during what the agency called a “targeted enforcement operation.” The man was identified as Oscar Belgal, 28. His son, five years old, was in the back seat the whole time!!
Surveillance video shows the man backing into a parking spot near a fire hydrant before a plainclothes federal officer walked up to the driver’s side door with his gun drawn. Then came the shots. At least one ICE agent fired seven rounds, and Belgal was hit in the neck. His Honda CR-V had damage to the windshield, and the back window was shattered. The child was not hurt, which is a mercy and nothing more. Police say a bullet went in through the front windshield and out the rear window, and that is a few feet from where a kid was buckled in.
Of course, the Department of Homeland Security tells a different story than the neighborhood does. A spokesperson said officers were running an operation to arrest an undocumented immigrant with a criminal record, and the agency says officers rendered aid afterward. City officials claim he has two prior arrests, one for robbery and one for criminal sale of a controlled substance.
New York Mayor Mamdani said clearly that nothing explains that many rounds fired into a vehicle with a child in it. He also said the agents wore construction vests and masks, so nobody on that block could easily tell who was who.
Belgal did not even get to recover in peace. Mamdani said he was taken into federal custody, and the mayor’s office said the city was on the phone with President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin trying to negotiate his release. New York officials say DHS has taken control of the investigation, so the agency whose officer fired the shots now runs the inquiry.
The mayor called the shooting “an outrage” and accused the administration of “terrorizing our city.” Governor Kathy Hochul said she told Trump and Mullin she urged them to halt ICE enforcement operations in New York. She also warned that with a child in that car, it could have “ended in tragedy.”
Protesters marched from the scene to a nearby hospital, and some scuffled with police. The calls grew louder for ICE to be removed from the city altogether. Immigration status does not change who is at risk when bullets fly on a school-day street. A child saw his father get shot. Whoever ends up investigating this owes that boy, and every parent on that block, a full and honest answer.