ICE officers shot a man in New York because they believed they were in danger, official says
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal immigration officers opened fire on a Dominican man in New York because he drove his car into their vehicles as they attempted to arrest him and they believed their lives were in danger, a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said Friday.
Those agents weren't aware that the man's 5-year-old son was with him in the car when they fired bullets into the vehicle, said Marcos Charles, head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations.
The child was not hurt. The driver, 28, was shot “superficially” in the neck, Charles said. He was treated at a hospital then released into federal custody.
Officers used their vehicles to block the man as he attempted to drive away, but he accelerated toward them, Charles said during a news conference with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in Washington.
“Our officers, using their training and believing that their life and the life of the 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 wounded man as Oscar Belgal. His lawyers later gave the spelling of his last name as Bergal. Federal officials spelled his last name Bengal.
Mullin blamed the man for putting his son at risk by trying to evade officers.
Belgal associated with a robbery crew that used mopeds and weapons, and was convicted of grand larceny last year and sentenced to five years of probation, Charles said, adding that he evaded officers in September when ICE tried to arrest him for deportation.
Belgal has pleaded not guilty to narcotics-sale charges in an ongoing case. The Legal Aid Society, which was representing him in that case, called Friday for a “full and transparent” investigation of the shooting, but declined further comment.
Attorneys representing Belgal filed an emergency petition early Friday morning challenging the legality of his detention. A judge issued an order temporarily barring the government from removing him from the U.S. A hearing was scheduled for Friday afternoon. The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan said the government intended to hold Belgal at a jail in Brooklyn.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, said late Thursday that they had unsuccessfully pressed Mullin and Republican President Donald Trump to release Belgal. They also urged the administration to immediately release ICE officers' body camera footage of the shooting and to halt immigration enforcement operations in the city.
Mullin confirmed ICE officers were wearing body cameras that were activated, but didn’t say when any of that footage would be released. Under agency policy, bodycam video can be released within 72 hours if “determined that it is in the best interests of the agency."
On Friday, New York City police released footage from its officers as they arrived at the scene following the shooting.
The video shows Belgal sitting on the pavement with his hands behind his back as federal officers attended to his injury. The police body camera footage also showed one federal officer carrying a rifle. The video shows officers lifting Belgal, placing him in a black SUV then driving him to a nearby hospital.
“Yo put pressure. Put 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 federal officer in plainclothes approached with his gun drawn, followed by another federal officer who also wasn’t in uniform. Belgal started to pull the car forward, and at least one of the officers fired seven rounds, hitting the man below his left ear.
Mamdani called the shooting an “outrage.”
“There is no justification for what we have seen today,” he said late Thursday.
Mullin accused New York officials of creating an unsafe atmosphere for immigration detentions. Under laws in place for years, the city's jails don't honor most immigration detention requests, meaning people awaiting trial for minor crimes, or who have finished serving jail sentences, are regularly freed even if they are being sought for deportation.
ICE has asked local officials in New York to hold onto more than 14,000 people for federal officers to detain, Mullin said.
“Silence. Absolute silence is what we have gotten back,” the secretary said. “Why would they release these individuals back onto the streets?”
During Trump's second term, Homeland Security has often accused suspects of attempting to ram officers with vehicles or other perceived threats, which the department uses as justification for opening fire. Evidence from other shootings has sometimes called that rationale into question.
In the Jan. 7 shooting death of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Homeland Security officials initially claimed an ICE officer opened fire in self-defense after Good attempted to run him over with her vehicle. Videos filmed from multiple angles challenged the administration’s narrative.
On July 10, ICE officers fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston as the Mexican national was driving his construction crew to a job site. DHS maintained Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle, but the three men inside his vehicle disputed the narrative.
Last year in a Chicago suburb, immigration officers fatally shot Silverio Villegas González after they say the Mexican national drove at them and dragged one with his car, causing “serious injuries.” But body camera videos from local police showed the agent who shot Villegas González walking around afterward and dismissing his own injuries as “nothing major.”
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Marcelo reported from New York. Associated Press reporters Anthony Izaguirre and Jennifer Peltz in New York City and Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa, contributed.
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