US immigration officials have defended the actions of officers who shot and wounded a man in his car in New York on Thursday while his five-year-old son was in the back seat.
Markwayne Mullin, the head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which runs the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said officers fired their weapons while trying to arrest a man with a criminal history.
“We weren’t aware the child was in the car,” Mullin added at a news conference on Friday, arguing that it was the man, Oscar Belgal, who had put his child in danger. Belgal is now being held at a detention facility.
The legal organisation representing Belgal told the BBC that lawyers had not yet been able to speak to him.
The shooting happened in the residential neighbourhood of Marble Hill.
Marcos Charles, a top ICE official who was also at Friday’s news conference, said agents used their vehicles to try and stop Belgal in his car but that he resisted orders to get out and instead accelerated, smashing into two ICE vehicles.
Charles said Belgal then “weaponised his vehicle and proceeded to accelerate going towards other officers”, adding: “Our officers, using their training, and believing that their life and the life of their partners in the general public were in danger, used their training and fired weapons.”
The number of officers who fired their weapons is being investigated.
Charles said Belgal “was struck by one of the bullets or fragments superficially in the neck”.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who called what happened “unconscionable and incredibly serious”, said ICE agents surrounded Belgal’s car before opening fire.
“They wore construction vests and masks that concealed their faces. There is no reasonable way to identify them as ICE agents,” Mamdani said. He confirmed that the child was unharmed.
Mullin said the officers identified themselves and were wearing body-worn cameras that were turned on during the incident.
Video of the shooting, including body camera footage, has not been made public but unverified videos on social media appear to align with Mamdani’s comments.
Body-worn camera footage released by the New York Police Department (NYPD) on Friday shows its officers arriving on scene and attempting to help Belgal after he has been shot. One ICE officer appears to be wearing a neon construction vest and carrying a large gun.
The NYPD officers then call for an ambulance and putting him in a police car to take him to hospital. They are later seen pulling Belgal from the vehicle and carrying him into the hospital.
