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This article was originally published by Documented, an independent, non-profit
newsroom dedicated to reporting with and for immigrant communities in New York City.
The original article can be accessed here.
A federal immigration officer shot a man Thursday afternoon in New York’s Marble Hill neighborhood, according to police, eyewitnesses and the Department of Homeland Security, in an incident that drew swift rebuke from elected officials and a crowd of spontaneous protesters late Thursday night.
The man was treated at a nearby hospital for a gunshot wound to the neck, officials said.
Eyewitnesses described a chaotic scene unfurling on a busy street in Marble Hill — a neighborhood that is legally in Manhattan but connected to The Bronx — around 4 p.m., as a slew of New Yorkers were getting home from work and school. As shots rang out, bystanders sheltered in neighboring businesses, the eyewitnesses said.
New York City officials said the ICE agents were in plainclothes wearing masks and construction vests at the time of the shooting, and video and photos of the moments after showed one agent brandishing an assault rifle, as passersby ducked for cover.
Crowds of protesters and elected officials arrived at the scene in the hours after the shooting and outside the nearby NewYork—Presbyterian Allen Hospital, where the wounded man was taken.
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“I don’t think justice can be served until ICE is off our streets,” said Stella Carlson, witness to Alex Pretti’s murder.
“What happened today was an outrage,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a press conference at the scene late Thursday night. Mamdani confirmed the man’s 5-year-old son was in the car at the time of the shooting.
“When ICE agents opened fire, a 5-year-old child — a 5-year-old child — was in the back seat of that car,” he said. “Thank god that child is physically unharmed.”
The mayor said he spent two hours on the phone with President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in a failed attempt to get the shooting victim — identified as 28-year-old Oscar Belgal — released. Instead, Mamdani said, ICE agents “whisked him away” from the hospital in Upper Manhattan.
“During the incident, an ICE officer discharged his weapon and the criminal illegal alien was injured,” the statement read. “ICE officers immediately rendered aid. The individual is alive and at a local hospital. The FBI and HSI are on the scene. The incident remains under investigation.”
Belgal was identified by Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch late Thursday. Court records showed he pleaded guilty in 2025 to grand larceny in the fourth degree and had an open charge for criminal possession of a controlled substance stemming from an arrest in 2025.
Eyewitnesses to the shooting spoke to The City Reporter and Documented in the hours after the shooting, recalling the commotion as gunfire erupted in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Iris Rosa, a school therapist, said after she emerged from a nearby shop, she saw a man bleeding on the ground in front of a car, while agents milled around, one holding a small child.
“He was all full of blood,” she said, while the child an agent held was quiet. “How could you do this? What is going on? And then I’m looking at the baby.”
Stephanie Ferrer, 30, who lives in Marble Hill, said she heard multiple shots and called 911. She watched the scene from one of her bedroom windows until agents carried the man away by his arms and legs.
“He was disoriented, I think because one of the guys that was holding him next to him was trying to keep him aware, trying to keep him awake by just doing some taps on the cheek,” she said. “You know, like, ‘hey buddy,’ like ‘stay awake, don’t fall asleep.’”
A video posted to social media appeared to show the chaotic aftermath, with a crowd gathered as NYPD officers rushed to a car and carried a man, seemingly unconscious, out of it and into the back of a law enforcement vehicle.
“Put pressure,” one officer is heard to say as they load the man into the back seat.
In a statement posted to X, the NYPD confirmed federal agents were behind the shooting and took the victim to the hospital. “The NYPD was not involved in the incident and was not on scene at the time of the shooting,” they said.
By Thursday evening a crowd of protesters had gathered at the scene, while NYPD officers and caution tape blocked off the street. The dented car Belgal was driving could still be seen blocking West 225th Street at Marble Hill Avenue. Two agents in plainclothes from the Department of Homeland Security were canvassing the area for video footage.
At an impromptu protest at the scene Thursday night elected officials and immigrant advocates gathered to denounce the shooting.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat told the crowd the child was safe with other family members and that he had tried to visit the wounded man in a nearby hospital and been barred from talking with him by ICE agents.
“The family is shaken…by this terrible horrible shooting,” he said.
Another crowd of protesters gathered outside the nearby NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital where the man was said to have been taken, as police and officials from Mamdani’s office stood at the perimeter.
Protesters tried to block a car of federal agents leaving the hospital, and police officers pushed demonstrators aside to clear the way, making several arrests.
The shooting occurred not far from the rooftop parking deck of a Target store where, Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson said later that night, federal immigration agents sometimes muster, before heading into The Bronx to make arrests.
Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, told Documented and The City Reporter that he spoke with the family of the shooting victim.
“Thankfully, the father is alert, from what I understand. Shot in the neck, but alive, which I’m thankful for, and his child is with the family,” said Williams. “But I don’t trust the investigation that the federal government is going to try to do.”
Mamdani called for ICE to be abolished and, referring to striking images of one of the agents standing at the shooting scene in a yellow construction vest and holding a rifle.
“Residents have no idea if these are law enforcement agents or if they are simply attacking someone on the street,” he said. “When it comes to ICE it begs the question, ‘What’s the difference?’”
Gov. Kathy Hochul said she had talked with President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin about the shooting.
“I expressed outrage on behalf of New Yorkers and urged them to halt ICE enforcement operations in New York,” she said in a statement. “I also asked that any body camera footage of the shooting be released to the public so we can establish the facts and get to the truth.”
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