Newly released NYPD body-camera footage showing the aftermath of an immigration enforcement shooting in New York City has intensified scrutiny of federal agents who shot a man with his 5-year-old son in the car.

The footage shows officers arriving Thursday in Marble Hill to find Oscar Belgal, 28, wounded, handcuffed and seated on the ground. NYPD officers rendered aid and rushed him to a hospital. Police later located his unharmed son with a family member.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned the shooting in an initial social media post, saying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had shot a New Yorker while his child was in the vehicle.

This afternoon in Marble Hill, a New Yorker was shot by an ICE agent in a residential neighborhood. Early reports indicate agents surrounded him and a 5-year-old child in his car before firing multiple rounds. We believe the child was physically unharmed.

This is an unconscionable and incredibly serious situation. I have called the President; when we speak I will demand that he ends all ICE enforcement actions in our city. I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities.

Our thoughts are with the injured New Yorker and his family tonight. We are praying for his recovery.

Get ICE out of our neighborhoods. Get ICE out of our hospitals. Get ICE off our streets. Get ICE away from our children.

Abolish ICE.

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) October 8, 2026

ICE defended the operation, alleging that Belgal, a Dominican national with a criminal record, accelerated his vehicle toward federal agents who feared for their lives. The agency also accused him of gang involvement.

On October 8, at approximately 4:00 PM ET, ICE officers were conducting a targeted enforcement operation in the Bronx, New York, to arrest a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic with a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny, and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs, and weapons possession. He has associations to the Trinitarios gang, the same gang who brutally shot a CBP officer last year.

This criminal illegal alien was arrested by the NYPD on December 7, 2023, but was released into the community a few days later by reckless Democrat sanctuary policies that put American lives at risk.

During the incident, an ICE officer discharged his weapon and the criminal illegal alien was injured.

ICE officers immediately rendered aid. The individual is alive and at a local hospital. The FBI and HSI are on the scene. The incident remains under investigation. More information will be shared as it becomes available.

When dangerous illegal aliens are released back onto the streets by radical sanctuary politicians, our officers are forced to make arrests at large in the community in unpredictable and dangerous environments. Our officers should not have to risk their lives, and innocent Americans should not have to face unnecessary danger, because sanctuary politicians refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement.

— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) October 9, 2026

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at least one federal agent fired seven rounds, striking Belgal in the neck. Surveillance footage shows armed, plainclothes officers approaching his vehicle but does not capture the shooting itself.

The incident sparked demonstrations across the city, including a Friday march from Foley Square to federal immigration offices in Manhattan.

Mamdani said he unsuccessfully appealed to President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to release Belgal. He subsequently called for ICE’s abolition.

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Belgal’s attorneys said he was transferred to New Jersey after the shooting before being returned to federal detention in Brooklyn. A judge has restricted his transfer and temporarily blocked his deportation while his legal challenge proceeds.

New York Attorney General Letitia James called for a “full and transparent investigation conducted without fear or favor.”

The Bronx district attorney’s office is investigating. ICE has not publicly released its own body-camera footage of the shooting.

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This article is part of Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

As insurgent candidates offering critiques of the Democratic Party won primary after primary in 2025 and 2026, pundits were left wondering: were the Democrats having their own “Tea Party moment”? Back in 2010, the Tea Party was key to securing massive GOP legislative gains, even as its reactionary edge cost the GOP winnable senate seats in places like Delaware and Nevada.

Progressive triumphs in Democratic primaries during president Trump’s second administration might suggest something similar is on the way. Zohran Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo in the race for New York’s mayoralty, Abdul El-Sayed’s triumphed against establishment pick Haley Stevens in the Michigan Senate primary, and Graham Platner easily dispatched — despite scandals of such magnitude he would ultimately have to withdraw as the party’s general election candidate — Gov. Janet Mills in the Maine Senate primary. Each candidate offered fresher rhetoric, more ambitious politics, and a critique of the Democratic Party, allowing them to edge out — or in some cases destroy — their opponents. Cue the invocations of the Tea Party and questions about whether or not “the Democratic Party might very well be about to explode.”  

But comparisons between the Democratic Party’s fresh crop of candidates and the Tea Party do not really stand up to scrutiny. Tea Partiers were motivated by an anti-systemic energy that had deeper roots than the current ire of Democratic voters, and the demographics of the GOP meant the party ultimately embraced a “burn it down” approach to governance. The insurgent left within the Democratic coalition remains focused on conventional liberal issues like human rights, affordability, and taxing the wealthy. New, animating issues for voters — such as ending military funding for Israel and harsher regulation of data centers — still do not see voters anywhere close to the Tea Party’s reactionary fervor to remake, or remove, much of the U.S. government. Democratic voters — and the candidates they elect — may find that current leadership is not fit for their objectives, but replacing a few key stakeholders is a different dynamic from the Tea Party’s anathema towards any Republican interested in “normal” governance.

This op-ed is part of Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

Last week, New York City announced a groundbreaking $131.5 million settlement with DoorDash. The largest such resolution in city history, the case involved over 260,000 workers who were paid late and in some cases not paid at all. 

It also raises the question: If these underpayments happened in New York City, where DoorDash knew it was under scrutiny, what’s happening to gig workers everywhere else when no one is watching?

“Saturday Night Live” kicked off its 52nd season with a familiar Donald Trump impression, an increasingly familiar presidential friendship and a brand-new character: White House aide Natalie Harp.

The season premiere opened Saturday with Ramy Youssef reprising his role as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, delivering an update on the nor’easter battering the East Coast before James Austin Johnson’s Trump arrived unexpectedly.

“For some reason that no one can figure out, I really, really like you,” Johnson’s Trump told Mamdani, poking fun at the unlikely rapport between the president and the democratic socialist mayor.

But it was cast member Ashley Padilla’s debut as Harp that quickly stole the sketch.

A rain-soaked Harp burst into the room after supposedly running all the way from Washington, D.C., “Weapons-style,” a reference to the 2025 horror film. Johnson’s Trump then compared his devoted aide to a character from another horror movie.

“She’s like the girl from ‘Obsession’ but blond,” he said.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Padilla’s Harp responded. “I’m totally normal.”

She then pulled Mamdani close and issued a warning about Trump: “If you hurt him, I will end you.”

Harp, a longtime Trump aide sometimes nicknamed the “human printer” for providing the president with a steady stream of printed news articles and social media posts, has drawn renewed attention over her unusually close relationship with Trump. Reports this summer revealed intensely personal letters Harp sent Trump in 2023, including one telling him, “You are all that matters to me.”

SNL isn’t the only late-night show to turn Harp into a character.

Just two nights earlier, Jimmy Kimmel introduced his own clingy “assistant Natalie,” played by his wife and the show’s executive producer, Molly McNearney. The character hovered beside Kimmel during his Thursday monologue and offered to handle everything from his social media posts to his personal needs.

The back-to-back parodies mark a sudden pop-culture turn for a White House aide who has largely operated outside the spotlight.

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SNL, meanwhile, returned just weeks ahead of the midterm elections with politics firmly back in its repertoire. The premiere also took shots at the Trump administration’s fight with the press, the president’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his use of artificial intelligence during its “Weekend Update” segment.

The episode was hosted by New York Knicks captain Jalen Brunson, with KATSEYE as musical guest.

The post “Saturday Night Live” returns with “Natalie Harp”: “If you hurt him, I will end you” appeared first on Salon.com.