Mamdani: ‘No explanation’ for ICE shooting man near child in New York

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) late Thursday condemned the recent shooting of a man in the city by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.

“There is no explanation for these tactics. There is no explanation for federal officers firing this many rounds into a car that has a 5-year-old in the car. There is no explanation,” Mamdani said at a press conference about the shooting Thursday night.

“And the pretext of ICE is, in their words, ‘to keep this country safe.’ How is it keeping anyone safe to have — as you just heard from the police commissioner [Jessica Tisch] — individuals wearing construction vests in masks with long guns,” the mayor continued. “Residents have no idea if these are law enforcement agents, or if they are simply attacking someone on the street.”

A reporter then asked Mamdani about a recent post when he said he called President Trump and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin about the shooting.

“Now I made clear to the president, to the secretary, our request that ICE agents leave the scene entirely, as well as the demand that ICE stop its enforcement actions in New York City,” the Democratic mayor said, adding that the phone call lasted for two hours.

He added his negotiations for the release of the man shot by the officer were “unsuccessful.”

The incident happened around 4 p.m. EDT Thursday in the Marble Hill neighborhood, where an ICE officer attempted to arrest a man Tisch identified during the press conference as 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, while he was in a car. There was a 5-year-old boy, who is believed to be his son, in the back seat of the vehicle.

The police commissioner said a preliminary investigation revealed at least one ICE officer fired seven rounds into the car and hit Belgal in the neck below his left ear. The child was not injured and is now with another family member.

The DHS said in a statement on social platform X that it was “conducting a targeted enforcement operation” to arrest a man with “prior criminal conviction for grand larceny, and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs, and weapons possession.”

“The individual is alive and at a local hospital,” the department added.

The Trump administration announced in September it would ramp up its presence in “sanctuary cities” — including parts of New York.

Since Trump returned to the White House, ICE officers broke records with back-to-back months of arrests topping 50,000 in July and August, according to the Deportation Data Project. In the president’s second term, federal immigration officers have also shot at least 20 people, seven of them fatally, the data shows.