By Shireen Akram-Boshar
This article was originally published by Truthout
Lawyers for Oscar Belgal have called for his immediate release, citing inadequate care.
Oscar Belgal, the 28-year-old Dominican man shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New York City last Thursday, has not received surgery to remove a bullet lodged in his neck for over a week.
Lawyers for Oscar Belgal have called for his immediate release, citing inadequate care.
On Wednesday, the Legal Aid Society, which is representing Belgal, filed a habeas corpus petition decrying ICE’s “flagrant abuses of authority and categorically lawless conduct.”
ICE agents attacked Belgal in Manhattan on October 8 around 4 PM, soon after he picked up his 5-year-old son from school. The Legal Aid Society’s petition describes ICE’s sudden attack, noting that “an anonymous, masked man stormed Oscar’s driverside window with his firearm drawn, followed closely behind by several other masked men also wielding firearms. The men did not identify themselves, show any documents or otherwise communicate with Oscar in any substantive way.” They were all wearing civilian clothing, the report added.
The petition goes on to describe the attack against Belgal, as an ICE agent shot into his car “while his son cowered in the back seat.” ICE agents then “pinned him to the ground” and left him semi-conscious, without aid. Only later, when he woke up in a hospital, did the agents identify themselves as ICE officers.
Days later, the petition explains, the bullet remains lodged in his neck, and Belgal has “experienced a loss of sensation in half of his face, as well as hearing loss in his left ear, and has not received surgery to remove the bullet from his neck.”
Lawyers from the Legal Aid Society said Thursday that ICE has held Belgal in solitary confinement, under 24-hour lockdown. Initially detained in New Jersey, he was moved on October 9 to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn – the same jail where former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is being held.
Legal Aid Society lawyers said Wednesday that this is “a facility notorious for medical neglect.”
“With a bullet still lodged in his neck and his serious medical needs unmet, every additional day in custody puts him at further risk. The Court must intervene and order his immediate release,” they added.
Belgal’s shooting last week spurred a renewal of protests against ICE in New York City. Protestors demanded an end to ICE’s presence in the city and called for the abolition of the agency. In addition, demonstrators have called for an end to ICE’s use of local parking lots – and for city police commissioner Jessica Tisch to resign. Activists who attended a Manhattan protest that erupted the night of the shooting reported seeing NYPD “helping the ICE vehicles whisk away our neighbors and come in and out of the hospital.”
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