Mamdani condemns ICE after agents fire seven rounds near child

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned Immigration and Customs Enforcement after federal agents fired seven rounds at a car holding a 5-year-old child in the Marble Hill neighbourhood on 8 October 2026, wounding Oscar Belgal, 28. Mamdani, speaking at a press conference that night, called the agency rotten to its core and demanded that ICE stop enforcement operations in New York City.theguardian.com

The shooting matters because it turned a federal immigration stop into a public confrontation between City Hall and the Department of Homeland Security, with a child in the line of fire. What is new is the mayor's open demand to abolish ICE and his direct, unsuccessful phone negotiations with President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. New York Governor Kathy Hochul joined the condemnation, urging the administration to halt enforcement operations in the city.washingtonexaminer.com

What the shooting changed

Police commissioner Jessica Tisch identified the wounded man as Oscar Belgal, 28, shot in the neck by at least one agent who fired seven rounds while the child sat inside. The child was unharmed and cared for by a family member, Tisch said. The shooting happened around 4 p.m. on a residential street as commuters came home and children walked back from school. Tisch stressed that the NYPD had no involvement in the federal operation and no officers were on scene.

Federal officials offered a different account. Top ICE official Marcos Charles said agents fired after Belgal refused lawful orders to exit, then accelerated, smashing into two government vehicles and driving toward other officers. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officers did not know a child was in the vehicle and that outrage should be directed at Belgal. The department did not specify what prompted the shot, calling Belgal a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic with a grand larceny conviction.

Mamdani said he spent two hours on the phone with President Trump and Secretary Mullin seeking Belgal's release, and that the talks failed. Moments later, he said, ICE put the man in an unmarked vehicle and whisked him away from New York-Presbyterian Allen hospital in upper Manhattan. The mayor said he spoke not just as mayor but as someone proud to be an immigrant, and that a 5-year-old child sat traumatized and terrified.independent.co.uk

Two accounts of the same stop

The accounts diverge on the man's record. The Department of Homeland Security said Belgal had a prior grand larceny conviction and arrests for assault, robbery, drugs and weapons, and alleged ties to the Trinitarios gang. Tisch said Belgal was convicted of grand larceny in 2023, received five years' probation and has a pending drug case. The department did not name him in its statement, and his relationship to the child was not clear.

WIRED identified an ICE supervisor at the scene as Brenden Cuni, filmed in a yellow construction vest with a modified AR-15-style rifle. Federal judges have repeatedly found problems with his work: Judge Gary Brown ruled an arrest illegal after Cuni signed a warrant claiming database searches confirmed a man was undocumented when they had found nothing, and Judge Brian Cogan said doorbell footage largely contradicted his account of another arrest.

The agent filmed at the scene

Cuni, a DHS agent for nearly a decade, began as a Border Patrol agent in San Diego in 2018, became a deportation officer in 2020 and joined the National Fugitive Operations team in May 2025. Lawyers for a 21-year-old Bronx man allege Cuni broke his tooth and shocked him with a Taser while handcuffed. WIRED could not independently confirm claims that he forced a pregnant woman to the ground in Minneapolis.

Protesters gathered soon after the shooting, with signs reading Jail all killer ICE agents and Leave our neighbours alone. Bronx borough president Vanessa Gibson told the crowd she was angry to be there and wanted to turn the moment into a movement. Darializa Avila Chevalier, the incoming Democratic congresswoman, was knocked over as police and demonstrators clashed. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined the call to abolish ICE and for an independent investigation.

Where the dispute stands now

At a press conference on Friday, Mullin defended the agents and said officers were unaware a child was in the vehicle. Hochul said that by the grace of God the child escaped without physical injury and that she urged the administration to halt ICE enforcement operations in New York. Ocasio-Cortez called ICE a rogue, lawless and paramilitary surveillance agency that should not exist.

The dispute now sits with the administration and the courts. Mamdani has demanded that ICE stop enforcement actions in New York City, and Ocasio-Cortez and others have called for an independent investigation of the shooting. At least 20 people have been shot by federal immigration agents under the second Trump administration, alongside a rise in deaths in detention, and the next step is whether any inquiry opens.