By Michele Evans / NYweeklyRecord.com / Date: 10/9/2026
Category: Public Safety / Federal Accountability / Civil Rights
NEW YORK CITY, NY –
A federal immigration officer fired seven rounds during a plainclothes arrest operation in Marble Hill, striking a 28-year-old man in the neck while a five-year-old boy sat inside the car, according to New York City officials.
The wounded man, identified by Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch as Oscar Belgal, survived and was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in stable condition. The child was not physically injured and was later placed with a relative.
The Department of Homeland Security said its officers were conducting a targeted enforcement operation to arrest Belgal, a Dominican national with a prior grand larceny conviction and other arrests. DHS said an officer discharged a weapon and agents provided aid. The agency did not explain what prompted the shooting or say whether Belgal was armed.
Tisch gave a more detailed preliminary account. She said city surveillance video showed Belgal backing into a parking space as one plainclothes federal officer approached the driver’s window with a gun drawn and another moved toward the front of the car. The vehicle then moved forward and left the camera’s view. The shooting itself was not captured by that camera.
Investigators recovered at least seven shell casings. The car had damage to its front windshield and rear window. NYPD officers were not part of the federal operation and arrived after hearing the gunfire, Tisch said.
Those facts leave urgent unanswered questions. The public does not yet know what agents shouted, what Belgal could see through the car, whether body-camera footage exists, what threat agents believed they faced or why seven rounds were fired near a child.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul demanded accountability and release of any body-camera footage. Mamdani said federal agents wore masks and construction-style vests, making them difficult to identify as law enforcement. DHS described the operation as lawful and blamed New York’s sanctuary policies for Belgal’s continued presence in the city, but did not explain how those policies affected his earlier release.
Belgal’s prior record is relevant to why federal agents sought him. It does not answer whether the use of deadly force was justified. That determination depends on the circumstances at the moment shots were fired, evidence that federal authorities have not yet made public.
The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations are involved in the review, according to DHS. Federal control of the investigation raises a second accountability issue: whether New Yorkers will receive an independent account of a shooting carried out by federal agents on a city street.
Until video, ballistics evidence and officers’ accounts are released, the confirmed facts remain narrow but stark. A masked, plainclothes operation ended with seven shots, a man wounded in the neck and a five-year-old child inside the line of fire.
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