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\n Photo: David Dee Delgado\/Reuters\n <\/p>\n
Darializa Avila Chevalier<\/a> was at a community meeting in Harlem on Thursday afternoon when her phone began blowing up with news that plainclothes federal immigration officers had just shot a man in his car in Marble Hill, the northernmost Manhattan neighborhood. Avila Chevalier, the likely next congresswoman for the district, rushed to the scene on West 225th Street and began asking the NYPD about which federal agency had shot 28-year-old Oscar Belgal in the neck as a 5-year-old was in the back seat. \u201cWe were told a number of agencies, but the only ones that I was able to see any kind of identification for was HSI,\u201d she says, referring to Homeland Security Investigations. \u201cThere were a number of plainclothes agents, who we believe were ICE agents, walking around.\u201d<\/p>\n Minutes after the shooting, protesters rushed in to demand that federal officers \u2014 including an agent in a construction vest with a long gun \u2014 leave the scene and the city. Avila Chevalier went with demonstrators across the Spuyten Duyvil Creek into Inwood, where Belgal had been taken to Allen Hospital. On the protest line, she says, \u201cpolice just began escalating. It was truly just chaos.\u201d The congressional candidate says she was trying to get between protesters and the police when an officer threw her to the ground. \u201cMy arm and my lower back hurt for most of the evening,\u201d she says. \u201cThankfully, I\u2019m okay today, but it was a pretty aggressive push.\u201d Four protesters were arrested<\/a>.<\/p>\n Darializa Avila Chevalier is on the front lines and got knocked down as NYPD and protestors shoved and fought over police barricades pic.twitter.com\/cBXMKuV89e<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Timmy Facciola (@TimmyFacciola_) October 9, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Months after President Donald Trump\u2019s deportation czar, Tom Homan, promised<\/a> to flood the city with ICE agents, New York is now facing its biggest immigration test yet in the second Trump administration. On Thursday night, Mayor Zohran Mamdani described the shooting as an \u201coutrage\u201d and repeated his call to abolish ICE. The next morning, he spent two hours<\/a> on the phone with President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin; he urged them to release Belgal, a Dominican national who had previously been arrested<\/a> for grand larceny. But the call didn\u2019t have the desired result. Before Belgal\u2019s hearing on Friday afternoon, even his lawyers said<\/a> they did not know where he was within ICE\u2019s deportation machine. At a press conference, Mullin criticized Mamdani, claiming<\/a> his calls to abolish ICE \u201cincite hostility.\u201d He also came to the defense of federal agents, saying they didn\u2019t know a child was in the car when they put seven bullets in it.<\/p>\n Mamdani, once again<\/a>, is being squeezed between critics on the right and his base of support on the left. In a statement<\/a> on Friday, Avila Chevalier called for the resignation of NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch. \u201cThe NYPD spent more time protecting a militia that just shot someone than protecting New Yorkers,\u201d the candidate wrote. She was also concerned that the commissioner, in a press conference<\/a> on Thursday night, had referred to Bengal\u2019s grand-larceny guilty plea in 2023. \u201cWhat was incredibly appalling to me was that after all of this had transpired, the police commissioner, instead of condemning ICE\u2019s actions, began vilifying the victim of its violence,\u201d says Avila Chevalier. \u201cTo me, that was just so obscene and unacceptable. It was truly enraging, and it goes against the spirit, if not the letter, of our sanctuary policies that she is supposed to be upholding.<\/p>\n As for Mullin, Avila Chevalier \u2014 who will be one of the most left-leaning representatives in Congress next year \u2014 said his comments, including the claim that officers did not know a child was in the car, had the \u201cstupidest line of logic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf this was a targeted arrest, then they would have known who they were arresting,\u201d she says. \u201cThey would have known that he was a father; they would have known where he was going and who might be with him. They would have known that, at the time he was driving there, it would be a very public space. It would have been a time of people passing by who are coming from home and school. It just shows that these people are not only cruel, they\u2019re also idiots. They\u2019re idiots who do not care what the impact is on our community.\u201d<\/p>\n On Friday, a federal judge in Manhattan instituted an order for immigration officials not to deport Belgal as his attorneys file an emergency habeas corpus petition so he can remain in the country. As of Friday evening, he is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, reportedly<\/a> with a bullet still in his body. The 5-year-old is physically unharmed<\/a> and in the care of family.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Intelligencer\u00a0Newsletter<\/p>\n Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n