Seven Shots Fired at Vehicle Carrying 5-Year-Old... What Happened During U.S. Immigration Enforcement?

Driver Shot in Neck, Child Unharmed... ICE Claims Agents Opened Fire After Being Threatened

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in New York City shot at a vehicle carrying a 5-year-old child while attempting to detain an undocumented immigrant, injuring the driver.

A man is subdued at the scene of a shooting involving an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Marble Hill, northern Manhattan, New York, on the 8th (local time). Reuters-Yonhap News

Local media, including The New York Times (NYT), reported on October 9 (local time) that a shooting occurred at around 4 p.m. the previous day, when ICE agents attempted to arrest a 28-year-old man from the Dominican Republic in Marble Hill, northern Manhattan. The man was in the vehicle with a 5-year-old child believed to be his son.

According to the New York Police Department, as ICE agents approached the vehicle, it began moving forward, and the agents fired a total of seven shots at it. The man was shot in the neck below the ear and taken to a hospital. He was reportedly not in life-threatening condition, and the child in the back seat was unharmed and turned over to family members.

A witness testified that after hearing gunshots, they saw the vehicle crash into a concrete barrier. The driver got out of the vehicle clutching his neck and shouting in Spanish, the witness said, while the child in the back seat was crying.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, said the shooting occurred during an enforcement operation targeting undocumented immigrants. ICE claimed that the man was linked to a gang that routinely committed thefts using weapons and small motorcycles. ICE also claimed that the agents feared for their lives and opened fire because the man refused their orders to get out of the vehicle, accelerated into two ICE vehicles, and drove toward other agents.

The shooting has sparked particular controversy because it occurred in a densely populated area with homes and schools, at a time when children were leaving school, and because a 5-year-old child was at the scene.

Protests against immigration enforcement took place at the scene and at a nearby hospital. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Governor Kathy Hochul also directly protested to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Mayor Mamdani also wrote on social media, calling the incident “an unacceptable and deeply serious situation” and urging that “ICE must be abolished.”

Governor Hochul said she contacted President Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, “expressed outrage on behalf of New Yorkers and called for ICE to halt its enforcement operations in New York.” She also said she requested the release of body-camera footage from the time of the shooting to establish what happened.

However, Secretary Mullin claimed during the call that the agents did not know there was a child in the vehicle, while the man knew the child was with him and nevertheless tried to flee to evade enforcement.

Meanwhile, since the start of its second term, the Trump Administration has made the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants a key policy and stepped up enforcement in major cities. In January, a civilian was killed after being shot while inside a vehicle during a standoff with ICE agents conducting the “Metro Surge” immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In July, three people died in the space of a week in incidents involving ICE enforcement, fueling further controversy.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.