Oscar Belgal’s lawyers say the 28-year-old still has a bullet lodged in his neck and has not eaten since being shot by ICE agents in Manhattan last Thursday.
Belgal, a Dominican national, is being held in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, the same facility that currently houses alleged healthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione and deposed Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. His legal team from the Legal Aid Society and Make the Road New York issued a joint statement detailing his condition.
“Mr. Belgal is living through an unimaginable nightmare,” his attorneys wrote.
“While he is currently in solitary confinement, a bullet remains lodged in his neck, the left side of his face is numb, and he can barely hear out of his left ear,” the lawyers continued. “Doctors have told him he urgently needs surgery, but that the procedure was too dangerous to perform Thursday evening without a specialized surgeon present.”
The attorneys added that Belgal was instructed to return to the hospital this week but “has been left in the dark about whether that surgery will even happen.” They also noted he suffered a shoulder wound from shattered glass during the incident.
His lawyers further claimed that Belgal “has not eaten a single meal since Thursday” and “has been told that the only water available to him comes from a bathroom sink.” During his isolation, they said, he has been “forced to relive the terrifying moments of being shot.”
The shooting occurred shortly after 4 p.m. Thursday in the Marble Hill neighborhood, where plainclothes ICE agents stormed Belgal’s SUV as he picked up his son. Agents fired into the vehicle when he attempted to pull away, striking him in the neck. Marcos Charles, head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, said Belgal “accelerated” at the agents, “smashing” into two of them — an allegation not captured on CCTV footage of at least part of the incident obtained by The Post.
Authorities said Belgal entered the US illegally in 2022 and has accumulated multiple charges, including a 2023 armed robbery conviction and a 2025 arrest for allegedly selling fentanyl, cocaine and heroin. Former neighbors told The Post he used to terrorize them with a machete. He is also described as a reputed member of the Trinitarios street gang.
“The deliberate indifference Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed toward Mr. Belgal when he was shot on Thursday, and the treatment he has endured in detention since, are further examples of the cruelty and disregard for basic human dignity that have long defined this agency,” his lawyers wrote.
“We will continue to fight for Mr. Belgal’s immediate release from detention and to ensure that he receives the medical care, due process, and basic human dignity to which he is entitled under the law,” the attorneys concluded.
Belgal’s legal team has not indicated when or where any hearing on his detention might take place.