A federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fired no less than seven pictures on a crowded Marble Hill road Thursday afternoon, sending passersby ducking for canopy. Within the chaotic aftermath, a person slumped exterior his dented automotive, bleeding from his neck and fading out and in of consciousness, eyewitnesses mentioned. Close by, an agent held the person’s 5-year-old youngster, who had been within the again seat of the car, in response to video and eyewitnesses.
The capturing Thursday is one in all no less than 32 incidents the place immigration enforcement brokers have shot individuals since President Donald Trump took workplace final yr, in response to the nonprofit newsroom The Hint.
The U.S. Division of Homeland Safety has not named the agent liable for Thursday’s capturing, and it isn’t clear which agent fired the pictures as authorities proceed to research what occurred.
Just one agent up to now has been captured by a number of eyewitness movies and pictures — together with NYPD body-camera footage taken moments after the capturing and launched Friday — brandishing what seems to be a modified assault rifle on the middle of the commotion. Within the movies, he’s seen carrying a development vest and plain garments, with an ICE badge dangling from his neck.
That agent is Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer Brenden Cuni, a well-known face to these carefully following the Trump administration’s ICE crackdown in New York Metropolis. Cuni has been noticed wielding an assault-style rifle at varied immigration enforcement actions over the previous yr and a half, together with on Canal Avenue and in Bushwick.
Citing a regulation enforcement supply, Wired reported Cuni recognized himself to NYPD officers at Thursday’s scene. He didn’t return requests for remark from The Metropolis Reporter over telephone and textual content message Friday morning.
Requested about Cuni’s arrest historical past and presence on the Marble Hill capturing Thursday, DHS mentioned it will “by no means affirm or deny makes an attempt to dox our regulation enforcement officers” as a result of “publicizing their identities places their lives and the lives of their households at severe danger.”
“Our regulation enforcement officers are on the frontlines arresting terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles and rapists,” the company mentioned. “Now, due to the malicious rhetoric of sanctuary politicians, they’re underneath fixed menace from violent agitators.”
The Metropolis Reporter beforehand documented a sample of violent arrests allegedly involving Cuni, the place immigrants described being beat up and tased. In a single case, a 21-year-old man in The Bronx alleged Cuni tased him a half-dozen instances whereas he lay on the bottom and later referred to as him a “maldito Mexicano” or “fucking Mexican” in Spanish, in response to federal courtroom information.
A further assessment by The Metropolis Reporter of federal courtroom information filed within the intervening months present Cuni participated in various warrantless arrests round New York Metropolis that federal judges later deemed unlawful. In a kind of instances, a decide dominated Cuni lied in sworn paperwork submitted in courtroom.
New York Legal professional Basic Letitia James, whose workplace introduced an initiative earlier this yr to make sure ICE brokers had been performing lawfully in New York, declined to touch upon Cuni’s presence on the scene, pointing to a press release calling for a “full investigation” of the capturing. In a handful of uncommon instances, state prosecutors have introduced felony expenses towards immigration brokers to be used of power, although such brokers usually have broad protections of their official capability.
ICE Scales Up
Cuni has been a supervisory officer at ICE since December 2024 and an ICE agent since 2020. He labored for 2 years for U.S. Customs and Border Safety in San Diego earlier than that, in response to his testimony submitted in sworn federal courtroom information that The Metropolis Reporter reviewed.
Cuni has been named in a number of habeas corpus lawsuits filed by immigrants in search of launch from immigration detention. In these instances, immigrants who weren’t the preliminary goal of enforcement operations described violent arrests.
A month after the arrest the place Cuni allegedly used a racial slur, he was named in one other habeas corpus lawsuit filed by a person in Corona, Queens, who mentioned he was repeatedly hit with a stun gun wielded by Cuni.
In each of these incidents, ICE confirmed its brokers used power, and mentioned the focused males had resisted arrest.
Cuni’s title has continued to floor within the months since, as ICE ramped up road and automotive stops throughout the 5 boroughs.
In Could, he was on the scene of the violent arrest of Chidozie Wilson Okeke, a Nigerian man in Bushwick, the place a masked agent appeared to tase him whereas different brokers broke his automotive home windows and dragged him out of the car.
After his arrest, Okeke was taken to close by Wyckoff Hospital, the place protesters gathered exterior in a confrontation with ICE brokers and NYPD officers later that evening.
ICE’s account of the arrest, which was submitted in federal courtroom and obtained by The Metropolis Reporter, recognized Cuni because the supervisory agent at that scene as properly. He was additionally the agent who signed Okeke’s arrest warrant.
Brokers initially stopped Okeke’s automotive as a result of they claimed he resembled one other particular person for whom they’d an arrest warrant. They adopted Okeke — operating his out-of-state plates and evaluating driver information with immigration information to find out he had overstayed a visa — after which blocked his path to arrest him. Decide Pamela Chen discovered that arrest violated Okeke’s Fifth Modification rights, and ordered his launch in July.
In one other case, federal Decide Brian Cogan discovered Cuni had lied in sworn courtroom statements associated to the arrest of an Ecuadorian immigrant on June 23.
The person, who had lived in New York Metropolis for 25 years and had no felony document, was picked up close to the Brooklyn-Queens border whereas ready to begin a development job, his attorneys mentioned in a habeas petition in August.
Cogan described discrepancies in Cuni’s testimony, together with the truth that a warrant was created after the arrest occurred. The decide additionally slammed ICE’s road arrest coverage.
“When ICE arrests first and pencil-whips the [administrative warrant] later, courts have uniformly discovered the arrests illegal,” Cogan wrote. “The courtroom does the identical right here. It’s a very uncommon exception that an arresting officer might difficulty his personal arrest warrant.”
In a scathing choice this previous week, Decide Gary Brown discovered Cuni issued a “fraudulent arrest warrant” for a person ICE brokers got here throughout throughout one other operation in The Bronx on the identical day they mistakenly arrested and beat up a U.S. citizen in Could.
“Brokers allegedly arrested petitioner based mostly on a bodily description and {photograph} of 1 goal. But the outline disproves the match: The goal was 5 inches shorter and 80 kilos lighter than the petitioner,” Brown wrote.
He described Cuni’s testimony in regards to the arrest as inconsistent with the information.
“After issuing a fraudulent arrest warrant stating that petitioner’s info was a part of the system when it was not and indicating that he could possibly be biometrically recognized though they’d not collected the knowledge to make a constructive match,” Brown wrote.
“Cuni tried to reconcile these falsehoods by subsequently accumulating the knowledge, including it to these techniques and, after issuing the warrant, looking out the databases once more to ‘discover’ him,” he continued. “Some issues merely pressure the creativeness.”
Brown additionally discovered the arrest was unlawful.
Earlier Arrest
Particulars are nonetheless rising in regards to the ICE capturing and arrest Thursday afternoon of 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, who was recognized by NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch throughout a press briefing that evening.
In its assertion on the capturing, DHS mentioned Belgal was from the Dominican Republic and was the goal of their arrest operation. The company mentioned he’d
been focused after a 2023 arrest and had ties to the Trinitarios gang. Court docket information confirmed he had a 2023 conviction for grand larceny within the fourth diploma.
“When harmful unlawful aliens are launched again onto the streets by radical sanctuary politicians, our officers are pressured to make arrests at giant in the neighborhood in unpredictable and harmful environments,” DHS wrote on X. “Our officers mustn’t need to danger their lives, and harmless People mustn’t need to face pointless hazard, as a result of sanctuary politicians refuse to cooperate with federal regulation enforcement.”
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