US immigration officials have defended 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.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Markwayne Mullin said officers opened fire while trying to arrest a man with a criminal history.
“We weren’t aware the child was in the car,” Mullin said, arguing that it was the man, Oscar Belgal, who had put his child in danger. Belgal is being held at a detention facility. His lawyers appeared at a hearing on his behalf on Friday.
“The first thing he asked me, is whether his son is OK,” his attorney Harold Solis said outside court.
A handful of friends and family members, including a cousin and an aunt, attended the hearing but did not speak to the press.
Another of his lawyers, Paige Austin, told the judge at the hearing that Belgal “still has a bullet in his body” and had been taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after being discharged from hospital.
Austin said he had only been able to make a brief phone call within the hour prior to the hearing.
The BBC has not been able to confirm his medical condition, but contacted DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The shooting happened in the residential neighbourhood of Marble Hill.
Marcos Charles, a top ICE official, said the agency’s officers 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 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 put 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.
Mamdani said on Thursday that he had spoken to US President Donald Trump and Mullin for two hours but failed to negotiate Belgal’s release.
Mamdani said he would ask Trump, who has not yet commented publicly on the shooting, to end ICE enforcement actions in New York. Mullin has said he will not pause enforcement.
The DHS said Belgal, 28, was from the Dominican Republic and had “a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs and weapons possession”.
Belgal was arrested by police officers in New York in December 2023 and released “a few days later”, according to the DHS.
