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House Democratic candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier is calling for New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to step down after a suspected illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic was shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the city on Thursday.
The shooting, which took place around 4 p.m. in the Marble Hill neighborhood, sparked a large anti-ICE protest, in which Avila Chevalier, a socialist who is all but certain to be a member of Congress next year, participated. Video posted on social media shows Avila Chevalier being pushed by what appears to be a police officer during an altercation between law enforcement and protesters.
“When I was in Marble Hill last night I saw NYPD officers rapidly escalating violence,” Avila Chevalier wrote in a statement. “As I was trying to de-escalate, I was shoved to the ground by an officer. I witnessed unmarked law enforcement cars hitting protestors as NYPD officers pushed people out of its path. And instead of condemning ICE’s violence, Police Commissioner Tisch attempted to justify the shooting by reading off our neighbor’s past interactions with police.”
Avila Chevalier said the New York Police Department “spent more time protecting a militia that just shot someone than protecting New Yorkers” and that the police force and Tisch “violated the spirit, if not the letter, of our sanctuary city policies and fueled the Trump Administration’s attempt to demonize our communities.”
“The NYPD’s Strategic Response Group must be disbanded as quickly as possible, and Commissioner Tisch must step down,” she added.
Tisch, who was appointed by former New York Mayor Eric Adams, was kept on by Mayor Zohran Mamdani when he took office last year as an olive branch to business leaders and those skeptical he might wholly overhaul the department.
Avila Chevalier also called for the abolishment of ICE, saying, “you can’t reform an agency whose purpose is to terrorize immigrant families. You can’t train cruelty out of a system built to enact cruelty. ICE must be abolished.”
The man shot by ICE agents has been identified as Oscar Belgal, 28, who had two prior arrests in New York City, including a 2023 robbery arrest and one in 2025 for criminal sale of a controlled substance. In the 2023 arrest, Belgal pled guilty to fourth-degree grand larceny.
The Department of Homeland Security has claimed that Belgal has ties to the Trinitarios gang, which the agency suspects was involved with the shooting of an off-duty Customs and Border Protection officer in the city last year.
At the time of the shooting, a 5-year-old boy, who has been identified as Belgal’s son, was in the back of the vehicle. He was unharmed during the shooting, authorities said, and Belgal was transported to the hospital and taken into custody. Mamdani condemned the timing of the shooting, saying that school had just gotten out for the day and that the street was crowded with families and children.
“When ICE agents opened fire, a 5-year-old child — a 5-year-old child — was in the back seat of the car. Thank God, that child is physically unharmed,” the mayor said.
MAMDANI SPOKE WITH TRUMP AND MULLIN FOR TWO HOURS ABOUT MAN SHOT BY PLAINCLOTHES ICE OFFICERS IN NEW YORK
The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Avila Chevalier is a member, did not call for Tisch to step down, but it said that she “must get ICE out of New York and end NYPD complicity with these terrorists.”
However, the chapter said that if Tisch cannot “put a stop to these injustices, she must be fired.”
Molly Parks contributed to this report.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
