ICE Officer Shoots Man in Marble Hill; DHS and NYPD Give Differing Accounts

A federal immigration officer shot and wounded a 28-year-old man in the Marble Hill neighborhood of Manhattan on Thursday, Oct. 8, during an attempted arrest with a child in the man's car. Officials said the child was not physically hurt.

Federal and city officials give different accounts of the moments before the shots. The Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were carrying out a targeted operation about 4 p.m. to arrest a man from the Dominican Republic with a prior conviction for fourth-degree grand larceny and earlier arrests. DHS said officers used their vehicles to block his car, that he refused orders to get out, struck two government vehicles and then accelerated toward other officers, and that the officers fired because they believed lives were in danger. DHS said he was struck in the neck by a bullet or fragment, was arrested, given first aid and taken to a hospital, and is now held at a detention facility outside New York state. DHS described the location as the Bronx; Marble Hill is part of Manhattan.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the man was pulling into a parking space when a plainclothes federal officer approached with a gun drawn, followed by a second plainclothes officer. She said he began to pull the car forward and at least one officer fired seven rounds, hitting him below the left ear. Tisch said the NYPD had no part in the operation and that city officers responded after 911 calls reporting gunfire.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Friday, Oct. 9, that agents did not know a child was in the car. DHS said the man has ties to the Trinitarios gang and is a target of a Homeland Security Investigations inquiry; the FBI and HSI are investigating the shooting.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement that federal authorities "need to provide answers, and they must do so immediately." Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he had called the president and would demand an end to ICE enforcement in the city.

It is, of course, policies by people like Hochul and Mamdani that require local law enforcement to not cooperate with federal law enforcement and to release dangerous criminals back onto the street, and that is why ICE is searching for these individuals in places like parking garages, creating the circumstances for this shooting. Why any voter thinks it is in the communities best interest to release illegal immigrant criminals into the streets instead of handing them over to ICE for deportation is a mystery.

The solution provided by Hochul and Mamdani is, not to hand illegal immigrant criminals over to ICE when they are arrested for crimes, but rather to continue releasing them onto our streets and prevent ICE from searching for them. Defies basic logic and is clearly bad for New York, but that's their plan. Election day is November 3.