Federal immigration agents shot and wounded a driver while his 5-year-old child was in the back seat Thursday during a targeted enforcement operation in the Bronx in New York City, because the agents believed their lives were in danger, federal officials said. The shooting occurred just after 4 p.m. in the Marble Hill neighborhood when an ICE agent discharged a weapon into the man’s vehicle, New York City officials said late Thursday. Federal officers used vehicles to block the man in, but he refused lawful orders to exit his vehicle, according to Marcos Charles, executive associate director of ICE. The man allegedly drove his vehicle into two government vehicles and then “weaponized his vehicle” and accelerated toward other officers, Charles said. The officers fired at the man, “believing that their life and the life of their partners and the general public were in danger,” Charles said. Oscar Bergal, 28, from the Dominican Republic, suffered a superficial wound to the neck, officials said. Bergal – spelled as Belgal in some court records – is in a detention facility outside of New York, and Charles said ICE plans to try to remove him from the country as soon as possible.
