US immigration officers in New York shot a man in the face on Thursday as they were attempting to deport another man, who they believed to be in the country illegally.
Shots rang out around 8.15am in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn as immigration enforcement officers tried to arrest Gasper Avendano-Hernandez, a Mexican national who Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials say had been deported twice before.
The New York Post reports that the shooting victim is 26-year-old Erick Diaz, who said his mother was in a relationship with Avendano-Hernandez. The consul general of Mexico said Diaz was in the country legally, according to the New York Daily News.
According a witness at the scene, Ice officers tackled Avendano-Hernandez as he attempted to enter a home to grab a work tool he’d forgotten.
Diaz intervened, and in the ensuing scuffle an officer’s service weapon went off, firing a bullet through Diaz’s hand and into his face. His injuries are not believed to be not life-threatening.
The officers did not identify themselves before tackling Avendano-Hernandez, the witness told the Post.
“These dudes came out of nowhere and tackled the shit out of him. They didn’t say, ‘We’re here to arrest you, take you into custody.’ They didn’t say nothing. They had handcuffs and guns, but they didn’t identify themselves as officers. And then he reacted. He started to fight back,” the witness said.
Ice did not immediately respond to questions from the Guardian, but said in an earlier statement that two of its officers were “physically attacked” during the arrest and taken to the hospital.
Immigration officials also detailed Avendano-Hernandez’s criminal record, which includes a 2011 conviction for assault.
Earlier this week, police arrested Avendano-Hernandez for reportedly driving a car with forged Connecticut license plates. They released him before Ice could issue an order to hold him for deportation.
“This forced Ice officers to locate him on the streets of New York rather than in the safe confines of a jail,” Ice said in a statement.
The shooting comes amid an escalating dispute between the administration of Donald Trump and New York City over its sanctuary policies. Ice has expressed frustration in recent weeks that the city does not honor the vast majority of its detainer requests.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has said it complies with detainer requests for defendants only after they are convicted of a violent or serious felony. The city does not turn over defendants awaiting trial.
The City Hall spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein said in email that “an Ice official shot someone and minutes later they attempted to point the finger at the NYPD”.
“If that’s not further proof that they’re simply a mouthpiece for a man who lies hundreds of times a day and has absolutely no regard for public safety, I don’t know what is,” she said.
