Leading New York Democrats expressed anger and demanded curbs on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violence after a federal officer shot a man in a car where a five-year-old child was sitting, sparking fierce protests.
At least seven shots were reportedly fired and the man was hit in the neck late afternoon on Thursday as children were coming home from school in the busy Marble Hill neighborhood of the south Bronx in New York City.
Democrats lead condemnation
Kathy Hochul, New York's governor, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani, the city's mayor – all of whom are Democrats – led condemnation of the conduct. Darializa Avila Chevalier, the incoming Democratic New York congresswoman, rushed to the protests and ended up being knocked over in the chaos as local police and demonstrators clashed.
The man was conscious and hospitalized, authorities said, while later he was taken away from the hospital by ICE, according to the mayor. Mamdani called the incident “unconscionable” and said on Thursday night that ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), had “whisked him away” from the New York-Presbyterian Allen hospital in upper Manhattan.
Calls to abolish ICE
A similar incident occurred in Texas last month after a man was shot by an ICE officer in Austin and despite a bullet lodged in his back was taken by the federal authorities from a local hospital to ICE detention about 140 miles away. Ocasio-Cortez and Mamdani demanded ICE be abolished.
Early reports indicated that agents had surrounded the man and a five-year-old child in his car in a residential area before firing multiple rounds, Mamdani said in a statement. The child was physically unharmed, he said. Both Hochul and Mamdani spoke to Donald Trump and Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, by phone.
“I have been on the phone with President Trump and secretary Mullin negotiating the release of the man ICE agents shot. Those negotiations were unsuccessful,” Mamdani told a press conference. He demanded from the Trump administration that ICE stop its enforcement actions in New York City. “ICE is rotten to its core,” he said.
ICE enforcement continues
ICE has been stepping up arrests all year in a number of ways despite withdrawing massed militarized ranks from Minneapolis in January and adopting a more covert approach to enforcement. Both Hochul and Mamdani demanded that ICE cease its enforcement operations in New York and the governor said she expressed outrage to the Trump administration on behalf of all New Yorkers. She said the incident could easily have ended in tragedy.
“No child should ever have to experience the terror of gunfire,” she said. DHS later said that the man was from the Dominican Republic and has prior convictions, with the New York police department (NYPD) also noting previous arrests. The 28-year-old man has not been named and his relationship to the child was not clear, although it was reported on Friday that the child was now being looked after by other family members.
Mullin said on Friday morning that the ICE officers involved in the shooting did not know there was a child in the vehicle of the man they were targeting. He said that Hochul had asked DHS for a pause on enforcement in New York. “No, we are not putting a pause on enforcement,” he said. He slammed Mamdani, accusing him of failing to enforce the law or stand up for the city's police.
Protests and demands for investigation
“What happened today was an outrage,” Mamdani said late on Thursday, adding: “When ICE agents opened fire, a five-year-old child – a five-year-old child! – was in the back seat of that car. Thank God that child is physically unharmed.” Witnesses told local media they heard the child yelling at the officers after the shooting. At least 20 people have been shot by federal immigration agents under the second Trump administration, as well as a rise in deaths in detention.
Ocasio-Cortez joined Mamdani in calling for the abolition of ICE. “ICE is a rogue, lawless and paramilitary surveillance agency. It does not belong in New York City and it should not exist in the United States of America. Abolish ICE,” she said in a statement. The representative also condemned the retail giant Target for allowing federal enforcement teams to use its parking lots as staging areas from where to launch arrest operations. She and others called for an independent investigation of the shooting.
One witness told the City Reporter, a local news outlet, that she saw a man bleeding on the ground in front of a car and observed an agent holding a small child. Videos also showed bullet holes in the windshield of an SUV, NY1 reported. Protesters began to gather in the area soon after the shooting, with some demonstrators holding signs saying, “Jail all killer ICE agents” and “Leave our neighbors alone”.
Hands Off NYC and the New York Immigration Coalition, two local groups, held an emergency press conference in the area where elected officials and organizers expressed outrage and decried ICE's ongoing presence in the neighborhood. “ICE, get the fuck out of our neighborhood,” shouted Vanessa Gibson, Bronx borough president. “I'm angry that we have to be here … We are a working-class community. We don't deserve this type of treatment from the White House.” She encouraged the crowd to get involved in opposing ICE, saying: “There are more of us than there are of them. I want this to be a moment that we turn into a movement.”
Jumaane Williams, the city's elected public advocate, said “fuck ICE” and “fuck Trump”, adding: “It is our time to stand up. Those of us who have more privilege – we must take more risk to protect those who don't.” New Yorkers of all ages flowed into the streets from the nearby 1 subway train, and protesters soon also gathered at a local hospital where the man shot by ICE was reported to be receiving treatment. Outside the hospital, NYPD set up barricades and protesters quickly clashed with police officers in a chaotic scene.
Demonstrators banged drums and shouted, “Shut it down,” and “ICE out!” as cars driving by honked in support. Standing outside the hospital, Murad Awawdeh, the president of the New York Immigration Coalition, said he wanted to see an independent investigation into the shooting led by New York officials. He also called on DHS to release footage of the shooting and for the officer who fired the shots to face prosecution. “The pain that you're witnessing is people who are witnessing their neighbors, their family members, their friends being ripped away,” he said.
