WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal immigration agents opened fire on a Dominican man in New York because he drove his car into their vehicles when they tried to stop him and believed their lives were in danger, a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said Friday.
Those agents did not know the man’s 5-year-old son was in the car with him when they fired bullets at the vehicle, said Marcos Charles, chief of ICE enforcement and deportation operations.
The child was not injured. The driver, 28, was shot “superficially” in the neck, Charles said. He was treated at a hospital and then returned to federal custody.
Officers used their vehicles to block the man as he tried to walk away, but he accelerated toward them, Charles said at a news conference with the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security. Markwayne Mullin in Washington.
“Our officers, using their training and believing that their lives and the lives of their partners and the general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons,” Charles said.
New York City police and local court records identified the injured man as Oscar Belgal. His lawyers later said his last name was Bergal. Federal officials spelled his last name Bengal.
Mullin blamed the man for putting his son in danger by trying to escape police.
The shooting was the latest violent confrontation with ICE agents during That of President Donald Trump nationwide immigration crackdown. The agency has repeatedly said its agents feel unsafe when operating against immigration targets or during protests. In some cases, evidence subsequently emerged casting doubt on these claims.
ICE already tried to arrest Belgal, Charles says
Belgal joined forces with a crew of thieves who used mopeds and guns, and was convicted of robbery last year and sentenced to five years of probation, Charles said, adding that he escaped police officers in September when ICE tried to arrest him for deportation.
Belgal has pleaded not guilty to drug sales charges in a pending case. The Legal Aid Society, which represented him in the case, called Friday for a “full and transparent” investigation into the shooting, but declined further comment.
Lawyers representing Belgal filed an emergency motion early Friday morning to challenge the legality of his detention. A judge issued an order temporarily barring the government from deporting him from the United States. A hearing was scheduled for Friday afternoon. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan said the government intended to hold Belgal in a Brooklyn jail.
Mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani and the governor of New York. Kathy Hochulboth Democrats, said Thursday evening that they had unsuccessfully pressured Mullin and Republican President Donald Trump to release Belgal. They also urged the administration to immediately release Bodycam footage of ICE officers of the shooting and to stop immigration control operations in the city.
Mullin confirmed that ICE agents wore activated body cameras, but did not say when that footage would be released. Per agency policy, body camera video can be released within 72 hours if “it is determined to be in the best interest of the agency.”
NYPD releases body camera video
Friday, New York police body camera footage released from his agents when they arrived on the scene after the shooting.
The video shows Belgal sitting on the sidewalk with his hands behind his back while federal agents treat his wound, and one federal officer carries a rifle. The video also shows officers lifting Belgal, placing him in a black SUV and then driving him to a nearby hospital.
“You’re pushing. Putting pressure,” an officer can be heard saying as the SUV reverses down the block.
New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Belgal was pulling into a parking space when a plainclothes federal officer approached with his gun drawn, followed by another federal officer who was also not in uniform. Belgal began to move the car forward and at least one of the officers fired seven bullets, hitting the man below his left ear.
Mamdani called the shooting a “scandal.”
“There is no justification for what we saw today,” he said Thursday evening.
Mullin criticizes New York’s immigration policy
Mullin accused New York authorities of creating a dangerous atmosphere for immigration detentions. Under laws in place for years, the city’s jails do not honor most immigration detention requests, meaning people awaiting trial for minor offenses or who have finished serving their prison sentences are routinely released even if they are wanted for deportation.
ICE has asked local authorities in New York to detain more than 14,000 people so federal agents can detain them, Mullin said.
“Silence. Absolute silence is what we have found,” the secretary said. “Why would they release these individuals onto the streets? »
ICE has justified other shootings as perceived threats against agents
During Trump’s second term, Homeland Security has often accused suspects of trying to ram officers with vehicles or other perceived threats, which the department uses as justification for opening fire. Evidence other shootings has sometimes called this justification into question.
January 7 shooting death of Renée Good In Minneapolis, Homeland Security officials initially claimed an ICE officer opened fire in self-defense after Good tried to run him over with his vehicle. Videos filmed from multiple angles challenged the administration’s narrative.
On July 10, ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston as the Mexican national led his construction crew to a job site. DHS maintained that Salgado Araujo crashed into an ICE vehicle, but the three men inside his vehicle disputed the account.
Last year, in a Chicago suburb, immigration agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas González after they said the Mexican national charged at them and I dragged one with his car, causing “serious injuries”. But local police body camera videos showed the officer who shot Villegas González walking around afterward and calling his own injuries “nothing serious.”
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Marcelo reported from New York. Associated Press journalists Anthony Izaguirre and Jennifer Peltz in New York and Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa, contributed.
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