ICE Shot NY Man, Then Kept Him Detained

Oscar Belgal’s lawyers say an immigration officer fired into his car without identifying himself, striking Belgal in the neck as his young son sat in the back seat. Belgal remains detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. His lawyers say he hasn’t had surgery to remove the bullet lodged in his neck.

The Legal Aid Society filed a petition seeking Belgal’s release Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court. Its account sharply conflicts with statements from Department of Homeland Security officials, who say ICE officers opened fire because they believed their lives were in danger.

Masked men, guns, and a shattered window

The petition says Belgal picked up his son from school on Oct. 8 and stopped in front of a fire hydrant while searching for a parking spot. His lawyers say “an anonymous, masked man” approached with his gun drawn, followed by other masked men carrying guns. The men, they wrote, “did not identify themselves, show any documents or otherwise communicate with Oscar in any substantive way.”

According to the lawyers, the first man struck Belgal’s driver-side window with his gun, shattering it, then fired several shots into the car. “One of those bullets struck Oscar in the neck and he immediately began to bleed,” the petition said. Belgal’s son cowered in the back seat, his lawyers say.

New York City police security-camera footage released by the department last week captures part of the encounter, but doesn’t resolve how the shooting happened. A man in a sweatshirt and red hat runs toward Belgal’s car with his gun pointed at him. He strikes the driver’s-side window with the gun barrel. The second blow shatters it. A second officer appears beside the car and draws his gun.

Belgal pulls into the street and drives away from the two officers. The officer in the red hat pursues him, but NYPD cameras don’t capture what happens next. Moments later, the chase ends with Belgal’s damaged car against a concrete barrier. Bullet holes mark the windshield and rear window.

The official account, and the unanswered footage

Bystander video and NYPD body-camera footage show ICE officers handcuffing Belgal and tending to his neck wound as he sits on the pavement outside the car. NYPD officers take him to a nearby hospital. His lawyers say he later woke there, unaware that the men were ICE officers.

DHS didn’t comment Wednesday on the lawyers’ claims, saying the incident remains under investigation. Officials maintain that officers fired because they believed their lives were in danger. They say officers opened fire only after Belgal smashed his car into two government vehicles and “accelerated toward other officers.”

At a news conference last week, Marcos Charles, head of ICE’s enforcement and removal operations, said Belgal refused orders to exit his vehicle, then accelerated and smashed into two government vehicles as ICE officers tried to block him from driving away. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has maintained that officers didn’t know a child was in the car and blamed Belgal for putting his son’s life in danger.

A wound, a detention, and competing claims

Belgal’s lawyers say he has lost sensation on the left side of his face and has impaired hearing. They say he remains jailed without surgery to remove the bullet in his neck. The Federal Bureau of Prisons, which manages the jail, didn’t immediately comment.

“Mr. Belgal’s detention was unlawful from its inception. ICE officers shot him in the neck in front of his five year-old son, failed to provide him with immediate medical assistance, and now continue to hold him in a facility notorious for medical neglect,” said Perry McAninch and Elyssa Williams, the lawyers representing Belgal.

The available camera footage shows the approach, the shattered window, and Belgal driving away. It doesn’t record the shots or resolve the competing accounts of what happened during the chase. The petition asks a federal court to release a man who, his lawyers say, was shot by masked officers before he knew they were immigration agents and who remains in detention with a bullet in his neck.