Mayor Zohran Mamdani pressed President Trump to release an illegal immigrant wounded by ICE in the Bronx, a demand that collided with the man’s violent record.
An ICE agent opened fire Thursday afternoon while trying to arrest a wanted man in New York’s Bronx, wounding the driver and setting off street clashes outside the hospital where he was treated.
Fox News reported that the operation unfolded around 4 p.m. as agents moved on a man federal officials described as an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic. The man survived. A five-year-old boy believed to be his son was in the vehicle and was not hurt.
By nightfall, Mayor Zohran Mamdani was at a news conference condemning ICE, demanding agents leave the city, and urging President Trump to free the wounded man. That plea failed. ICE later moved the suspect out of the hospital.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said evidence at the scene showed at least one ICE agent fired seven rounds. The shots struck the driver in the neck below his left ear.
"Based on evidence collected at the scene, we know that at least one ICE agent discharged the seven rounds, striking the driver in the neck below his left ear,"
Tisch identified the man as 28 years old. She said the boy was placed with a family member.
The Department of Homeland Security said ICE officers gave immediate aid. The man was alive at a local hospital. The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations were on scene. The shooting remains under investigation. DHS did not detail what led agents to fire.
Federal officials did describe who they were trying to arrest. DHS said the man had a prior grand larceny conviction and earlier arrests tied to assault, robbery, drug possession, and weapons possession. The agency also alleged ties to the Trinitarios gang.
New York City police had arrested him on Dec. 7, 2023, then released him several days later. DHS blamed the city’s sanctuary policies for that release, the same policies that put him back on the street until ICE caught up with him in the Bronx.
Mamdani did not dwell on that record. He held a late-night news conference and framed the shooting as proof of a deeper indictment of federal immigration enforcement.
"All they do is terrorize this city,"
He went further.
"Today's shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known,"
And further still.
"ICE is rotten to its core,"
Mamdani said he spoke with Trump for about two hours. He demanded an end to ICE enforcement in the state, said New York City wants agents out, and accused the agency of acting with impunity while spreading chaos and terror. He also claimed ICE has killed more people than it has saved. He confirmed agents later transported the wounded man from the hospital.
He urged Trump to have the man released. Trump did not do so.
Gov. Kathy Hochul took a parallel line. In a post on X, she said she spoke with Trump and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin about the shooting in Marble Hill.
"Tonight, I spoke with President Trump and DHS Secretary Mullin about the shooting in Marble Hill. I expressed outrage on behalf of New Yorkers and urged them to halt ICE enforcement operations in New York. I also asked that any body camera footage of the shooting be released to the public so we can establish the facts and get to the truth."
Her message matched the mayor’s core ask: stop federal immigration arrests in New York, then litigate the facts afterward. Whether body camera video exists, and whether it will be released, was not settled in the initial accounts.
After the shooting, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, where the man was treated. Crowds filled nearby streets in the Bronx. Protesters and police shoved one another. Some demonstrators threw water bottles. Officers set barricades. Police made some arrests.
Chants rolled through the demonstration: “ICE off our streets,” “No justice, no peace,” and “From Palestine to Mexico, all these walls have got to go.”
The scene turned a targeted arrest of a wanted man into a political flashpoint, less about the suspect’s history than about whether federal agents should be allowed to operate in the city at all.
The sequence is straightforward. City police arrested the man in 2023. He was released within days under local sanctuary rules. DHS flagged a serious record and alleged gang ties. ICE tried to take him into custody in the Bronx. An agent fired. The suspect was hit and survived. A child in the car walked away uninjured. Agents gave aid, then later moved the man from the hospital.
City and state leaders answered that chain of events by calling for ICE to stand down across New York and by pressing the White House to free the same man federal officers had just risked a gunfight to arrest.
DHS, for its part, said the case is under investigation and promised more information as it becomes available. No charges tied to the shooting itself were listed in the initial reporting. The man’s full medical condition after the hospital transfer was not detailed. His name was not released in the first wave of coverage.
What was clear is the political choice on display. An illegal immigrant with a documented criminal history and a prior sanctuary release became the subject of a mayoral demand for freedom, while the agency that finally moved to arrest him was branded as a terror force in his own city.
Taxpayers and lawful residents are left with the bill for that order of priorities, and with the results when enforcement is treated as the scandal instead of the crime that made enforcement necessary.
