U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials stated on Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, that federal officers shot a man in New York City after he allegedly drove his vehicle toward them during an attempted arrest. The man, identified by police as 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, sustained a superficial wound to his neck and was hospitalized while in federal custody.
The incident occurred Thursday, Oct. 8, at approximately 4 p.m. in the Bronx during what federal officials described as a targeted enforcement operation. According to Marcos Charles, acting executive associate director for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Belgal was a Dominican national with a prior grand larceny conviction and a history of arrests for assault, robbery, and weapons possession. Officials stated Belgal had evaded a previous arrest attempt in September and was a person of interest in an HSI investigation into the 2025 shooting of a Customs and Border Protection officer.
Federal officials reported that officers used vehicles to block Belgal's car as he pulled into a parking space. According to New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, federal officers in plainclothes approached with weapons drawn before Belgal accelerated. Charles stated that Belgal rammed two ICE vehicles and drove toward officers, prompting them to fire seven rounds. A 5-year-old boy was in the vehicle at the time; Mullin stated that officers were unaware of the child's presence, though he asserted that Belgal knowingly endangered the boy by fleeing.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul criticized the operation and requested the release of Belgal and the officers' body camera footage. Mamdani stated the officers wore construction vests and masks, making identification difficult, and argued that the shooting lacked justification. Mullin rejected requests to pause immigration enforcement in New York, attributing the presence of individuals with criminal histories to the city's sanctuary policies, which limit local cooperation with federal immigration detainers.
The scale of the reported conflict involves more than 14,000 requests from ICE for local officials to hold individuals for federal pickup, requests that Mullin stated have been met with "absolute silence" from the city. For the individuals involved, these operations can result in immediate detention in facilities outside their home city, as seen with Belgal, and the initiation of federal removal proceedings. The use of force in this instance, involving seven rounds fired in a public area with a child present, sets a precedent for how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defends its agents' actions when they report a perceived threat to life during a high-traffic arrest.
What happens next involves multiple investigations and legal proceedings. The FBI and HSI are currently investigating the discharge of weapons by federal officers. Belgal remains under medical treatment and in federal custody at an undisclosed location outside of New York City, where he faces potential prosecution and removal proceedings. While the NYPD has released body camera footage from arriving city officers, federal officials have not yet provided a date for the release of the ICE officers' activated body camera recordings. Federal immigration operations are scheduled to continue without a pause.