ICE agents shot Oscar Belgal, 28, in the neck during a Bronx confrontation Thursday.
The Dominican national, whom federal authorities label a “criminal illegal alien” with suspected Trinitarios gang ties, had already fled his Washington Heights apartment building roughly a year earlier after terrorizing residents, according to a former neighbor who spoke to The Post Saturday. That resident, a man from the Dominican Republic who withheld his name, described Belgal as arrogant and smug, recalling a confrontation in which he warned the younger man to change his ways.
“I spoke to him once and told him, ‘Look, you need to be more submissive because I see you acting too reckless’ … He thought he was a tough guy,” the former neighbor told The Post.
The resident said Belgal’s behavior escalated into outright violence. He claimed Belgal got into a fight with another resident’s nephew outside the building last year and pulled a machete. The neighbor also said Belgal had previously dodged ICE agents by running down one of the building’s two fire escapes, suggesting he knew authorities were pursuing him for a pending case.
“They were looking for him. It seems he had a pending case; Immigration goes after people who have committed crimes,” the neighbor said. “Immigration is just doing its job. They go after those who have committed crimes.”
Belgal’s criminal record includes a 2023 armed robbery conviction and a 2025 arrest for allegedly selling fentanyl, cocaine and heroin, a case that remains open. His latest encounter with law enforcement began Thursday when two plainclothes ICE agents with guns drawn approached the driver’s side of the gray Honda CR-V he was driving on 225th Street in The Bronx.
Marcos Charles, head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, said Belgal “accelerated” at the agents, “smashing” into two of them. One agent punched and smashed the driver’s side window glass. The agents caught up with Belgal about half a block away on Marble Hill Avenue outside the C&G Gourmet Deli, where gunfire erupted.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed Belgal was shot in the neck. His 5-year-old son, seated in the back of the vehicle, was unharmed. Belgal is expected to recover.
The former neighbor expressed disgust that Belgal had his young son with him during the confrontation. “He’s putting his son at risk. He’s got legal trouble, yet he drives around with his son in the car?” the man asked. “No, I don’t think that’s right. If he owes a debt to society, he should pay it…He was a danger to society.”
That sentiment clashed sharply with political rhetoric that emerged within hours of the shooting. Mayor Zohran Mamdani called Belgal a “New Yorker” and said he had tried to negotiate on the man’s behalf as he condemned ICE’s actions.
The neighbor dismissed any such framing. “He’s a menace to society,” he said of Belgal.
By Saturday, protests had erupted in Midtown demanding “justice for Oscar Belgal” and calling to “abolish ICE.” Demonstrators carried signs also demanding Commissioner Tisch be fired.
Belgal had been living in the Washington Heights building until approximately a year ago, when his pattern of threatening behavior and the machete incident prompted him to leave, according to the neighbor’s account.