Editor’s note: Below are excerpts from a Democracy Now! interview with New York City Council member Carmen De La Rosa and Darializa Avila Chevalier, Democratic candidate for Congress from New York City, about federal ICE agents shooting and wounding a man in Northern Manhattan. His 5-year-old son was in the car. The shooting was in a crowded neighborhood where people walk home from work or accompany their children home from school.
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!:
Oscar Belgal, 28, was struck in the neck. His five-year-old child was in the back seat of the car. Belgal was taken to the nearby Columbia Presbyterian Allen Hospital where hundreds of protestors gathered to demand his release chanting, “ICE off our streets now, and we want justice.” New York police arrested four people, assaulted others, including congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, who was knocked to the ground. In a late-night news conference,
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaking at the press conference:
Around 4 PM this afternoon, a New Yorker was shot by ICE agents in Marble Hill. Many of the facts surrounding this shooting are still unclear. ICE agents surrounded the man’s vehicle before opening fire. They wore construction vests and masks that concealed their faces. There was no reasonable way to identify them as ICE agents. School had just gotten out. The street was crowded with families and children. When ICE agents opened fire, a five-year-old child, a five-year-old child was in the backseat of the car. Thank God that child is physically unharmed.
For the past two hours, I have been on the phone with President Trump and Secretary Mullen negotiating the release of the man ICE agents shot. Those negotiations were unsuccessful. Just moments ago, ICE put the man in an unmarked vehicle and whisked him away. Let me say this plainly. What happened today was an outrage.
I stand here not just as the mayor of our city, but as someone who is proud to be an immigrant in our city. And I know that these kinds of raids, this kind of terrorizing of this city, leaves the 3 million immigrants of this city asking if they are safe here, if they belong here, if this too can be their home here.
We will not normalize ICE’s viciousness. We will not accept its cruelty. We know, and I have said this directly, whether to the president or to the public, ICE undermines public safety. It makes us less safe. New York City will not stand by while ICE agents shoot New Yorkers, and we will not back down from the demand that so many, including myself, have put forward time and again. This is an agency that must be abolished.
Amy Goodman, Democracy, Now!:
We’re joined now by two guests who were on the scene last night. New York City council member Carmen De La Rosa represents Marble Hill, Inwood and Washington Heights. And we’re joined by Darializa Avila Chevalier. She’s the Democratic candidate for Congress representing upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx. I was there with Democracy Now’s Nicole Salazar.
To say the least, it was heated last night.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, can you talk about what you’re demanding right now as you participated in the news conference; then you marched to the hospital. Hundreds were there. And then what happened to you?
Darializa Avila Chevalier, Democratic candidate for Congress:
I have been feeling enraged since yesterday. It has been hard to process all that has happened. When we were at the press conference, we were calling very clearly with all of the elected officials at the press conference for the abolishment of ICE. This is an agency that should have never existed to begin with. And what we saw yesterday was a prime example of why it is a terror to our communities, why it should not exist. It undermines public safety. It makes our communities feel terrorized by their own government. We need to make sure that such an agency never comes to pass and never exists again.
The fact that there were so many agents, ICE agents, HSI agents, federal agents on the scene, and that the NYPD was not giving elected officials much information once we were on the scene, to try to understand what had happened, whether or not the child was safe, the fact that it took so long for us to, to get confirmation of those details, all of that undermines public safety. Folks were scared, and rightfully so. Senator Gustavo Rivera and I had to go behind HSI agents, homeland security investigation agents, because they were going door to door asking neighbors for quote unquote evidence, asking them about their, their video cameras, asking them for more information, and we had to go behind the HSI agents to let folks know that they were under no obligation to open the door, that they were under no obligation to speak to any of these agents without a warrant.
And so I want New Yorkers to know if you see someone, even if it says police, if it’s not, a warrant, if they do not have a warrant, they do not have to open the doors or speak to any of these agents. They will pretend to be NYPD police. They are not. You do not have to open the door to them. We went over to the press conference after thatm called for, for abolishing ICE, called for the release of, of the person who had been shot, and for answers and accountability and meaningful accountability.
Unfortunately, what I saw was NYPD escalating the situation where protestors were outside of, of the hospital trying to, to make sure that ICE wasn’t leaving with with our neighbor, and, they continued to escalate the situation as I was trying to deescalate and telling them that the barricades were not necessary, that folks were, were calm. The tensions continued to rise, and police became more aggressive, and at one point shoved me and others to the ground. There there were four arrests that happened yesterday. Those were completely unnecessary. The escalation was completely unnecessary, and this is why we also, must demand that we get rid of and disband the SRG, because this, this type of response should have never happened for folks who were just simply trying to protect their neighbor.
Juan González, Democracy Now!:
Councilwoman Carmen De La Rosa, I know this neighborhood well. I lived in Inwood, a few blocks away from there for nearly 20 years, especially around where this happened. This is a highly congested area, especially in the afternoon at 4 in the afternoon, with people coming out of the train station, a big mall right next door to there. Haven’t you and other public officials complained about, uh, previously about ICE using a Target right there in that mall to gather their forces and to go out on sweeps?
Councilwoman Carmen De La Rosa:
Yes, there’s been escalating sightings of ICE at the target parking lot, which is private property. Myself and the surrounding elected officials have come together to demand that the owner of the property stop allowing ICE onto his property. We’ve been that they would discontinue any presence of ICE at the parking lot. Unfortunately, we continue to see ICE there, and it has also been the scene of neighbors protesting that presence of ICE. But we’ve also seen ICE in our local parks. We’ve seen ICE sightings and, congregating at Bancorn landPark in Inwood Hill Park. And this is the result of that escalating presence and unnecessary presence of ICE in our communities.
Juan González, Democracy Now!:
And how did the New York City Police Department deal with you as compared to the ICE agents and the federal authorities?
Councilwoman, Carmen De La Rosa:
The information coming from the NYPD was vague at best. I personally witnessed the NYPD escalating aggressively towards our community, barricading the community in, pressing barricades against our neighbors as they tried to make sure that their civil rights to protest, to show up, to speak up, uh, were, were being violated. And, unfortunately, I also witnessed NYPD helping the ICE vehicles whisk away our neighbors and come in and out of the hospital. So in my opinion, although we have been told that NYPD does not collaborate, there is a perception of, at the very least, of coordinating efforts for ICE’s entrance and exits into into our hospital.
Amy Goodman Democracy, Now!”
Dariealiza Avila Chavallier, witnesses have said that the ICE agent used what appeared to be a long gun, a large semi-automatic assault rifle. Can you talk about using a high-powered weapon as children are leaving school? And what does it mean for the city and also the state of New York to be a sanctuary city and state?
Darializa Avila Chevalier:
I cannot think of any good reason why such a weapon would be in our city at all, held by anybody. And the fact that these, these cowboys who think they, they can just be above the law, are shooting into our streets, not asking who is around, shooting into a car that had a five-year-old child in it, that child is so traumatized now because they just witnessed his father being shot by these agents. When we arrived at the scene, I asked the officers whether it was a crime scene because of the crash or a crime scene because of the shooting. And the NYPD told me that it was a crime scene because of the shooting. Yet they could not tell us whether the shooter had been apprehended, who the shooter was. No information was given to us.
And so to Carmen’s point, the vagueness of this really forces us to ask whether the silence here is not also complicity in ICE’s actions. It was truly astonishing. As I was making my way over to the hospital to see an unmarked car, which had police lights heading south and NYPD police pushing protestors, physically pushing protestors out of the street. And as the car was ramming into people before speeding away. It is truly shocking. The levels of, of violence, not just from the ICE agent that had a weapon of that magnitude, but the, use of the vehicles that were running into our our neighbors, all of that is an affront to the notion that this has anything to do with public safety.
We have become less safe with the presence of ICE, and we need to make sure that we are actually upholding the sanctuary policies of this city. There is no reason why NYPD should be collaborating this way, even just by standing around. That in itself is complicity in this.
There is no excuse for allowing ICE to come into our city, to shoot seven bullets into cars where there are children. It is just an outrage. I truly have no words for just how enraging everything that transpired last night was.
