On October 2, an off-duty NYPD detective named Jose Mercedes was slashed and stabbed during an attempted robbery in the Bronx. Seven times. The two men charged with attempted murder in that attack, D’Angelo Caraballo and Sneider Mejia, are Dominican nationals whom federal officials say entered the country illegally during the Biden administration. Both have extensive criminal histories. ICE had lodged a detainer on one of them. New York released him anyway.
From Mayor Zohran Mamdani at Gracie Mansion: silence. From Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office: silence.
On Thursday, ICE agents in Marble Hill attempted to arrest Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old illegal alien with two prior arrests and a detainer from the agency that New York had previously ignored. According to the DHS officials, Belgal had already fled from agents once in September. This time officers tried to box in his vehicle and he rammed their cars attempting to run again. An agent fired, striking him in the neck. A child believed to be his son in the vehicle was unharmed.
Within hours, Mamdani was in front of the microphones calling ICE “rotten to its core,” demanding an end to federal operations in the city, and describing Belgal as a New Yorker. Hochul joined in.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin put the obvious question to both of them Friday. NYPD officers, he said, are among the finest in the country. One was stabbed seven times last week by men the city had been asked to hold. Did the mayor say anything? Did the governor? Did the crowds now in the street demanding justice turn out for the detective? Not a word. Not from either of them.
BREAKING: DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin blasts Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul for condemning last night’s ICE-involved shooting while he says they remained silent after an NYPD officer was stabbed by a pair of illegal immigrants with prior criminal histories
“NYPD officers are some of the finest officers we have out there. Just last week, one was stabbed seven times by illegals. One that we had a detainer on that New York released. Both had extensive criminal backgrounds.”
“Did the mayor of New York say anything about that? Did the individuals that’s in the streets demanding justice for this criminal that we picked up yesterday? Did anybody come out for the officer that was stabbed seven times by these criminals?”
“Not a word was said. Not a word was said by the mayor. Not a word was said by the governor.”
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 9, 2026
NEW: ICE announces that the Dominican criminal illegal alien shot by ICE in the Bronx yesterday previously fled from ICE in September, and ICE didn’t pursue. Yesterday, ICE says they tried to block him in with several vehicles and he tried to flee again by ramming the ICE cars.…
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 9, 2026
That silence is not an oversight. It’s a worldview with a filter attached, and the filter admits only incidents in which the federal government is the antagonist. A detective nearly killed on a Bronx street doesn’t register, because the story leads somewhere Mamdani cannot go — to a detainer his city refused to honor and a man who should have been in federal custody rather than on that street.
Which is the part that should matter to New Yorkers. The sanctuary policy is not a gesture. It has an operational consequence, and the consequence showed up in an emergency room on October 2. ICE asked. New York declined. A police officer paid for it.
And notice the word Mamdani chose for Belgal: New Yorker. Not a man here illegally with two prior arrests who had already fled federal officers once. The mayor’s vocabulary assigns citizenship by sympathy, and it extends to a man accused of ramming law enforcement vehicles while an agency tried to execute a lawful arrest.
Mullin is right that the outrage has a schedule, and it runs exclusively against ICE. Detective Mercedes is still recovering. His mayor hasn’t mentioned him.
