Marble Hill ICE shooting: Wounded driver awaits neck surgery inside Brooklyn federal jail, attorneys

A bullet is still lodged in the neck of Oscar Belgal, 28, and he is being held alone in a cell at a Brooklyn federal jail, his attorneys said Sunday evening. Belgal was wounded on Oct. 8 in Marble Hill, when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fired into the car he was driving.

The left side of his face is now numb, his hearing in his left ear is nearly gone and his shoulder is injured, Make the Road New York and the Legal Aid Society said in a joint statement. The groups said doctors told him a specialist must remove the bullet surgically, and that operating last week was judged too dangerous because no such surgeon was available. Whether he will be returned to a hospital remains unclear, his lawyers said.

Conditions at MDC Brooklyn, according to his attorneys

Belgal, who was born in the Dominican Republic, is held at MDC Brooklyn in Sunset Park while he faces deportation proceedings on civil immigration removal charges. He has not had a proper meal since the shooting, he told his lawyers, and the only drinking water he has been offered runs from a bathroom sink. One of those lawyers, Harold Solis of Make the Road New York, questioned the isolation: “It’s not clear to us why a person with a bullet in their body is in solitary confinement.”

The Department of Homeland Security, when asked about his treatment, cited earlier statements from Secretary Markwayne Mullin and sent other questions to the Bureau of Prisons, which had not responded. A Homeland Security spokesperson has said Belgal has ties to the Trinitarios gang and a record of prior arrests in the U.S. Officials have also conceded the agents did not know his son was inside the car.

Who is investigating the Marble Hill ICE shooting

Although Marble Hill belongs to Manhattan on paper, it sits on the Bronx side of the Harlem River. A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said either office could take the case, but Bronx prosecutors typically handle crimes there. Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark’s office is leading, with help from Bragg’s office. “My office is working to establish facts and determine the appropriate course of action,” Clark wrote on X.

In surveillance footage the NYPD made public, two agents in street clothes run toward Belgal’s car, appearing to hold their guns, and one breaks the driver’s side window. The car reverses and then seems to pull away before an agent fires at least seven rounds. His 5-year-old son, in the back seat, was unharmed.

NYPD officers took Belgal to NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, and ICE agents later transferred him to the Brooklyn jail, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Tisch plan a review of the Marble Hill response. Meanwhile, the Democratic Socialists of America want Tisch gone: the group has urged Mamdani to remove her unless she can stop ICE operations in New York. Replacing the commissioner is not being considered, according to the mayor’s office.