In the latest attempted murder by the immigration Gestapo, 28-year-old Oscar Belgal was shot in the neck by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on Thursday, October 8. The shooting took place at 4:00 p.m. in the Marble Hill neighborhood of Upper Manhattan near stores, restaurants, schools and residential buildings.

The ICE thugs who carried out the operation wore masks and at least one, identified as ICE supervisor Brenden Cuni, was seen wearing a yellow construction vest in an attempt to disguise himself as a construction worker. It is unclear how Belgal would have known that federal agents were attempting to apprehend him or if he was being targeted by a gang.

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New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a press conference Thursday night that the agent who shot Belgal fired seven rounds into his SUV. Belgal’s son, a five-year-old, was in the back seat of the vehicle during the shooting and miraculously escaped physical harm. Photographs and video from the scene show the vehicle riddled with multiple bullet holes, including one through the windshield and a shattered back window.

After shooting Belgal, ICE agents took him out of the vehicle and handcuffed him as he bled. Footage released by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) on Friday morning shows that it was NYPD cops who loaded Belgal into their SUV and drove him to a nearby hospital.

The shooting immediately provoked mass anger and protests in the city. In a late night Thursday press conference held by Mayor Zohran Mamdani amid chants of “No ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA,” the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) mayor confirmed ICE agents wore masks and construction vests to conceal their identity. He noted that “school had just gotten out, the street was crowded with families and children.”

He revealed that he had been speaking on the phone with President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin for “two hours” trying to negotiate the release of Belgal from ICE custody but was “unsuccessful.” Mamdani said nothing about the deployment of the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group against protesters Thursday night.

Mamdani claimed he wanted ICE to be abolished before turning the microphone over to his police commissioner, Jessica Tisch. Police under the Zionist billionaire’s command were filmed assaulting demonstrators as they protected the ICE agents and then escorted the agents away.

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Tisch said that video reviewed by the NYPD showed two different “plain clothed” agents approaching Belgal’s gray SUV. One approached the driver side window “with gun drawn,” while another approached “the driver’s side headlight.” She said the vehicle “started to move forward out of camera view.” Tisch claimed the NYPD did not have footage of the shooting itself.

In a Friday morning press conference, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Mullin justified the shooting and attacked “sanctuary politicians” and “sanctuary policies.” He claimed the department was going after the “worst of the worst,” a blatant lie. The latest statistics from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse find that as of July 11, 2026, 70.6 percent, that is 46,436 people out of the 65,765 in ICE detention, had no criminal conviction.

These facts did not stop Mullin from repeatedly smearing the wounded father as a “thug,” “gangbanger” and even “attempted murderer,” though no ICE agent was injured during the shooting and kidnapping of Belgal.

Marcos Charles, head of enforcement and removal operations for ICE, asserted in the same press conference that Belgal was the target of a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) operation and that he had “weaponized” his vehicle.

Mullin admitted that Belgal was not in a hospital receiving treatment for his bullet wound but had been placed in a detention facility outside of the state of New York. He said that the DHS would continue to put him in removal proceedings. On Friday evening, lawyers for Belgal confirmed that he had been moved back to Brooklyn and was being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

During a court hearing on Friday, lawyers for Belgal said their client, originally from the Dominican Republic, was in pain and still had a bullet lodged in his body. They added that while he was worried about his future, he was more concerned about the health of his terrified five-year-old son.

Harold Solis, one of Belgal’s lawyers, said after the hearing, “You’re not supposed to get shot in your car with your child sitting in the back. Period.”

This is the second time in less than a month that the ICE Gestapo shot someone and then abducted him from a hospital before he received proper medical care. On September 20, a still unidentified ICE agent shot husband, father and DoorDash delivery driver Wilber Garces Perez in the back on a Sunday afternoon in Austin, Texas.

Garces Perez was forced to languish in prison for 11 days before he was allowed to have surgery to remove the bullet that was lodged in his back, near his spine. While the bullet has been removed, Garces Perez remains in federal custody.

Mullin claimed at his press conference Friday that ICE did not know a child was in the car when the agents began firing into it. Mullin blamed Belgal for ICE shooting into the vehicle, claiming that he “rammed two different vehicles” and “appears” to have been going toward officers. This is the same excuse the DHS has used to justify the murders of Renée Nicole Good, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez and Ruben Ray Martinez. Good and Martinez were US citizens.

According to an ongoing tally by the New York Times, at least 25 people have been shot by immigration police since Trump returned to the White House, a massive increase. The newspaper found that in the 12 months through Fiscal Year 2024, the last year of the Biden administration, an internal ICE committee recorded three incidents of agents firing their weapons. The prior year it was five.

Customs and Border Protection has reported approximately 15 shootings per year over the last three years, with many of these concentrated along the Southern border.

At his press conference Friday, Mullin said the agents did have body cameras but the department was not releasing the footage until later—a clear indication of a cover-up.

Early Friday evening reporters, from the World Socialist Web Site attended a protest against ICE held at Foley Square. They spoke to multiple people about the attempted murder.

A production editor told the WSWS he came to protest because “I believe what happened last night was wrong, and ICE is wrong.”

A cab driver similarly told reporters he came to protest because “what happened was wrong and I don’t think the NYPD should be collaborating with ICE.” He added that he watched a video where protesters were “ganging up on ICE, I’m not saying they were going to hurt him, but he definitely looked intimidated and the police just protected him.”

The cab driver called for the ICE agent who shot Belgal to be arrested and jailed. He said “the mayor is at fault because it’s his commissioner, he’s her boss, so he is responsible for what Tisch does.”

A woman attended the protest holding a sign demanding “ICE out of New York. Abolish ICE now. Release the footage now.” She told the WSWS that the police had “all the footage” of “ICE breaking the windshields of the car, dragging the guy out, taking him out on the street.” She said police would not release all the footage “because it’s obviously going to show ICE in a bad light, as they should be.”

She noted that that NYPD had released selected footage of them rushing Belgal to the hospital “instead of the actual act, which was pure attempted murder.”

She added that the footage would show ICE agents to be “the murderers they are.” She continued, “They tried to murder him, but they didn’t succeed.” ICE or the police might claim they “missed the actual shooting,” she said, “but we need to see evidence, because Trump will try to convince people that they didn’t shoot him or that he was a drug dealer. There will be lies perpetuated through the Trump channels.”

The woman ended the interview by calling for larger protests. “I hope they shut down the city actually, I hope they shut down the whole city, like they did in the Midwest,” she said.