In a series of phone calls between Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security made clear that it wanted the NYPD to arrest Oscar Belgal, the man who had just been shot in Marble Hill by an ICE agent.
But city officials refused, saying that the NYPD can’t arrest someone without a warrant, according to a source familiar with the calls between Mamdani and President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
After an ICE agent fired seven shots at a Honda SUV while trying to arrest the man on a busy street in Marble Hill, Mamdani told reporters he had spent hours on the phone trying to negotiate his release with Trump and Mullin. Those negotiations ultimately failed, Mamdani said.
A person familiar with Mamdani’s calls to Trump and Mullin said the mayor had agreed to an offer from DHS to have the NYPD take over the probe of the shooting, but DHS reneged when the police department would not immediately take the shooting victim, identified as Oscar Belgal, 28, into custody.
There was no arrest warrant for Belgal, and the NYPD would have not automatically detained him as part of any probe, the person said.
Mullin told reporters the agreement went south when the NYPD refused to keep Belgal in custody. “I am speaking facts. The mayor speaks with a political tone,” Mullin said Friday. “His words are dangerous and incite hostility — it doesn’t help.”
The shooting provoked angry protests as Mamdani, Gov. Kathy Hochul and other officials condemned ICE operations in the city — and it appeared to show the limits of the mayor’s friendly relationship with Trump.
When Trump and Mamdani met last month at Gracie Mansion, the MAGA president and socialist mayor presented an almost united front as two very different New Yorkers aligned in their zeal to get things done for the city.
Trump even said Mamdani could be a “great” mayor, and was “off to a start.”
That appeared to count for little on Thursday.
Despite imploring the president to release Belgal, an angry Mamdani ended the night empty handed.
“Just moments ago, ICE put the man in an unmarked vehicle and whisked him away,” the mayor told reporters late Thursday night, demanding that Trump end his administration’s immigration sweeps.
Even as Mullin chastised the mayor for his rhetoric, the White House stayed out of the fray and Trump made no mention of the shooting on his busy Truth Social feed.
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