NEW YORK — About 14 people were taken into custody on Wednesday, October 28, after anti-ICE protesters blocked traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, shutting lanes on the Manhattan side of the crossing for part of the afternoon before police cleared the roadway and all lanes reopened shortly before 1:30 p.m.
Source: ABC7 New York via QNC News
The New York Police Department said approximately 30 protesters took part in the blockade, according to PIX11 reporting cited in video coverage of the arrests. Protesters sat across lanes behind a banner reading “Stop Shooting Our Neighbors” and carried signs reading “Stop Shooting Us,” while chants of “Free Oscar Belgal” were heard on the bridge, according to eyewitness video reports. Officers carried some protesters off the roadway and handcuffed others, video showed.
Source: PIX11 / ABC7 reporting via YouTube
What the protest was about
Organizers said the action was a direct response to the October 8 shooting in Marble Hill, in Upper Manhattan, where an ICE officer shot a man during an attempted immigration arrest, and a call for ICE to leave New York City. The bridge — one of the city's most recognisable crossings and a lifeline between Brooklyn and Manhattan — was chosen to make that demand impossible for afternoon traffic to ignore.
A second account of the blockade, summarising ABC7's reporting, said demonstrators blocked traffic on the Manhattan side of the bridge and disrupted vehicles entering Manhattan before officials reopened all lanes. Charges against those taken into custody were not immediately available in those reports, and police had not released the names of those arrested by Wednesday evening.
Source: ABC7 New York via NYKnicksNews summary
Background: the Marble Hill shooting on October 8
The protest's focus, Oscar Belgal, is a 28-year-old Dominican national whom ICE officers tried to arrest at about 4 p.m. on October 8 near West 225th Street in Marble Hill, according to QNC News' account of the incident. An officer fired during the encounter and Belgal was struck in the neck while his five-year-old son sat in the back seat. The boy was not physically hurt. Belgal was treated in hospital before being transferred out of New York to a detention centre, the Department of Homeland Security said.
What is solid
- An ICE officer shot Oscar Belgal in the neck on October 8 in Marble Hill during an attempted arrest; his young son was in the vehicle and was not physically hurt.
- Surveillance footage obtained by ABC News showed two plainclothes officers approaching Belgal's parked SUV with guns drawn, and one smashing the driver's window before he pulled away.
What is only claimed
- DHS alleges Belgal “weaponized his vehicle” against agents and alleges ties to the Trinitarios gang — allegations Belgal's side has not accepted in the reporting reviewed, and the ABC News footage described in reports did not show the alleged ramming.
Those contested accounts are exactly why the case has kept drawing protests for nearly three weeks: federal officials defend the officer's actions, while demonstrators and the family's supporters point to the footage and to a child being in the car. Wednesday's bridge action was the most disruptive protest yet linked to the shooting.
Impact on drivers, truckers and the city
For the drivers caught on the bridge — including delivery and freight trucks that use the East River crossings to move between Brooklyn, Manhattan and the wider metro — the blockade meant heavy delays in the middle of the working day, with traffic entering Manhattan disrupted until the early afternoon reopening. Video from the scene showed frustrated drivers pleading with protesters to move, while at least one driver spoke in support, according to the video reports. For New York's immigrant communities, including the Punjabi diaspora across the metro area, the protest kept the Marble Hill case — and the wider argument over street-level immigration arrests — at the top of the city's agenda.
Confirmed: the blockade happened Wednesday, about 30 people took part according to the NYPD, about 14 were taken into custody, and all lanes reopened shortly before 1:30 p.m. Not yet released: the names of those arrested and the exact charges each faces.
What happens next
Those taken into custody were expected to be processed by the NYPD, with charges to be confirmed in court filings or a police update. Organizers have not announced a next bridge action in the reports reviewed. Separately, DHS has said it will pursue criminal charges against Belgal and seek his removal from the country — the underlying case that will decide whether Wednesday's protest becomes a single afternoon's disruption or the start of a longer campaign on New York's streets.