The New York Times described what happened when a plain clothes officer, with a drawn gun, approached the SUV driven by Dominican immigrant Oscar Belgal: “As the boy sat in the backseat, officers in plain clothes surrounded the car, Mr. Belgal accelerated and at least one of the officers fired seven shots, according to Jessica S. Tisch, the commissioner of the New York Police Department.”
Thank goodness the New York City boy was unharmed physically. But the mental wounds seem severe. “He’s having nightmares,” the boy’s mother told The Times on Friday. “He went through something he shouldn’t have gone through.”
Who wouldn’t be traumatized witnessing an ICE agent fire seven rounds into a car and wound your father in the neck, while sitting in the backseat? But the fact that it was a five-year-old going through such an ordeal makes it all the more horrific.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul posted on social media Friday that the boy’s mother said her child will not talk now. “She told me he’s normally so outgoing and talkative. Now he won’t speak,” Hochul said.
“She was also terrified ICE would come after her family again,” Hochul continued. She said she let the mother know that Donald Trump had confirmed that ICE would not be returning for her family.
“As a mom, all I wanted to do was give her a hug and tell her this never should have happened to her family,” Hochul added.
Hochul is right. It should not have happened. As an outraged Morning Joe show explains in the video above, even the smallest-town police officers know not to shoot into a car. “It just puts more people in danger,” co-host Joe Scarborough said. “Almost every department limits it, and most ban it outright."
Here’s hoping that boy gets a nice settlement from a lawsuit, thanks to the dangerous incompetence of the Trump regime.
Last night, I spoke with the mother of the five-year-old boy who was in the backseat when ICE agents opened fire on his father’s car.
Thank God she isn’t planning a funeral for her little boy today.
But she told me he’s normally so outgoing and talkative. Now he won’t speak. She was also terrified ICE would come after her family again.
I let her know that I’d spoken to President Trump and he confirmed that ICE would not be returning for her family.
As a mom, all I wanted to do was give her a hug and tell her this never should have happened to her family.
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) October 9, 2026
