NEW YORK CITY — The boy was 5. He was in the back seat of his father’s car on Marble Hill Avenue Thursday afternoon. Then ICE agents opened fire. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wants an accounting. She wants the tape. And she wants one company out of the business of hosting the agents.
That company is Target.
What happened on Marble Hill Avenue
The shooting happened during an ICE operation on Marble Hill Avenue around 4 p.m. He is hospitalized in stable condition with a neck wound.
Witnesses don’t agree on how many shots were fired. One neighbor told Gothamist he heard seven. A restaurant worker told The Associated Press it was three or four. A senior law enforcement official said agents fired at least five.
The child was not hit. He is back with relatives, according to one official. But he saw it. A neighbor, Cynthia Michele, said she heard the boy scream “Why are you guys killing my father.”
DHS says the man came from the Dominican Republic and has a prior grand larceny conviction and several earlier arrests. A DHS statement did not mention the child or say how many rounds were fired.
The congresswoman’s demands
Ocasio-Cortez put out a statement within hours.
“Today in Marble Hill, ICE agents fired multiple shots at a man in his vehicle while his 5-year-old child was in the back seat,” she said.
She asked for three things: an independent investigation, the body camera footage, and Target.
“Target opening up large, active retail parking lots for paramilitary activity is unacceptable and places the entire community at risk,” she said.
She ended where she always ends. “ICE is a rogue, lawless paramilitary and surveillance agency. It does not belong in New York City and it should not exist in the United States of America. Abolish ICE.”
The parking lot
The Target fight did not start Thursday.
On Monday, eight elected officials wrote to Kingsbridge Associates, the plaza’s developer, about reports that ICE was using the Target lot at 40 West 225th Street as a staging area. They asked whether anyone had authorized it and demanded that any permission be revoked. They also wrote that more than 50 residents had asked Target in April to stop cooperating with ICE.
Three days later, the shots were fired. Council Member Pierina Sanchez said they were fired near the spot where agents had reportedly been staging.
Target disputes the connection. The company told Gothamist it has no agreement with ICE and that the shooting did not happen on or next to its property. No link between the parking-lot activity and the shooting has been established.
This is not the first time Target has heard this complaint. In Minnesota, protesters held a sit-in at a West St. Paul Target to push the company to keep ICE out of its parking lots.
The city answers
Mayor Zohran Mamdani did not mince words. At a late-night news conference he said, “We know that ICE is rotten to its core.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul said she spoke with President Trump and DHS Secretary Mullin about the shooting. She also said “No child should ever have to experience the terror of gunfire.”
Streetside, incoming Democratic Congresswoman Darializa Avila Chevalier was present on the front lines as tensions flared between protesters and law enforcement. Amid the chaotic scenes, she was knocked down as crowds and police pushed against the barricades.
The bigger number
Marble Hill is one line on a long list. Immigration agents have been involved in at least 42 shootings since Jan. 20, 2025, and 11 people have died. ABC News sources say ICE recently raised its national goal to 3,000 arrests a day, up from 2,000.
Each arrest needs somewhere to start. A place to park. A place to wait.
The officials asked the landlord who gave ICE that place. Kingsbridge Associates did not respond to the Bronx Times.
The question is still open.
Migrant Insider will be in New York today covering the aftermath of the ICE shooting. Follow our work on social media.
ABOLISH THE ICE GESTAPO‼️
Boycott Target.