A 28-year-old man was shot by immigration agents in New York City while driving a car with a 5-year-old boy inside. The man, named Oscar Belgal, survived the incident and is receiving treatment at the hospital.
Targeted enforcement operation
The Department of Homeland Security, which heads ICE, said it was trying to arrest Belgal as part of a 'targeted enforcement operation'. In a statement, DHS did not say what led to the shooting, but said that 'during the incident, an ICE officer discharged his weapon'.
Details of the shooting
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that Belgal had been parking his car when a plainclothes officer approached him with their gun drawn. A second officer, also in plain clothes, approached. At this point, Belgal began to move forward. The ICE officers fired seven rounds, one of which hit Belgal below his left ear as the child sat in the backseat.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said: 'There is no justification for what we have seen today. Early reports indicate agents surrounded (the man) and a five-year-old child in his car before firing multiple rounds.'
Previous incident in Houston
In July, an ICE agent fatally shot a father of three during a traffic stop in Houston, Texas. An officer for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fired at the man after he allegedly tried to evade arrest. He is accused of ramming an ICE vehicle and trying to run over an officer before the shooting. The officer is said to have used his weapon in self-defence. The man has since been identified as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national. He was taken to hospital where he succumbed to his injuries, according to officials.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that ICE law enforcement 'attempted to conduct a vehicle stop as part of a targeted enforcement operation to arrest an illegal alien.'
