The man shot by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in New York City last week remained in solitary confinement at a federal lockup in Brooklyn on Monday with a bullet still lodged in his neck, according to his attorneys.
Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park awaiting deportation proceedings four days after federal agents opened fire on his car in Marble Hill, the attorneys said. His doctors reported he is in urgent need of surgery to remove the bullet, according to The Legal Aid Society and immigrant rights group Make the Road New York.
The procedure was too dangerous to perform last week without a specialized surgeon present, according to a statement from the groups.
The attorneys said Belgal reported he hasn’t been fed a proper meal since the shooting. Belgal has been forced to drink from the bathroom sink and has lost feeling in the left side of his face, the groups wrote.
“The deliberate indifference Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed toward Mr. Belgal when he was shot on Thursday, and the treatment he has endured in detention since, are further examples of the cruelty and disregard for basic human dignity that have long defined this agency,” the statement said.
Harold Solis, an attorney with Make the Road New York, said it’s unclear why Belgal is being held in solitary confinement on civil immigration removal charges.
“ All he’s doing is just replaying everything that happened on Thursday,” said Solis. “It’s not clear to us why a person with a bullet in their body is in solitary confinement and hasn’t been seen by medical specialists that apparently even the hospital told him he needs.”
Federal agents opened fire on Belgal’s car while he was driving alongside his 5-year-old son. Belgal started to drive off when the agents moved in to surround his car and at least one of the agents opened fire, federal officials said. Mamdani said that the plainclothes ICE agent who shot Belgal looked more like a mass shooter than a police officer.
Belgal was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital by NYPD officers, but was subsequently removed to the Brooklyn lockup by ICE agents, according to police commissioner Jessica Tisch.
Homeland security officials have said that the agents did not know there was a child in the car.
Following the shooting, the Democratic Socialists of America have called on Mamdani to fire Tisch as police commissioner if she can’t keep ICE agents out of the city. A spokesperson for the mayor said there were no plans to replace Tisch.