More than a dozen anti-ICE protesters were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, after a crowd of about 30 activists sat down on the roadway and brought traffic to a standstill in broad daylight. The Brooklyn Bridge anti-ICE protest, staged on the Manhattan side of the landmark crossing, lasted roughly 30 minutes before police moved in, cleared the lanes and reopened the bridge shortly before 1:30 p.m., after drivers heading into Manhattan had faced heavy delays and tailbacks stretching for miles.
The demonstrators said they were acting in response to the October 8 shooting of Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican national, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in the Marble Hill neighbourhood of Upper Manhattan. Their demands were blunt: free Belgal, and get ICE out of New York City. The New York Police Department confirmed only that "multiple" people were taken into custody on or near the bridge, while law enforcement sources put the number of arrests at about 13. The charges the protesters faced were not immediately known.
Video from the bridge on Wednesday afternoon showed demonstrators sitting cross-legged across the Brooklyn-bound roadway, chanting "NYPD, KKK, ICE, they're all the same!" Many wore shirts carrying the messages "Have you seen my neighbor?" and "Sanctuary Campus Now." The action shut down all three Manhattan entrances to the bridge, according to livestream footage from the scene, and enraged drivers begged protesters to move while at least one driver spoke in support.
Police moved in as the demonstration grew. Footage showed at least one protester being carried away by officers into a waiting NYPD cruiser, while others went freely with officers. The NYPD confirmed "multiple" people were taken into custody on or near the span, and police sources later confirmed about 13 arrests. Officials said all lanes were open again shortly before 1:30 p.m., ending a disruption that had left Manhattan-bound drivers facing heavy delays.
The bridge action was the most visible protest yet in a wave of anger that has been building in New York since the Marble Hill shooting nearly three weeks ago. Protesters had begun gathering near the scene in Marble Hill within hours of that October 8 incident, and demonstrations have since continued outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Belgal is being held. Wednesday's protest moved that anger from a Bronx neighbourhood street to one of the most photographed spots in the five boroughs, a crossing long favoured by demonstrators seeking attention.
The October 8 encounter happened at about 4 p.m. near West 225th Street in Marble Hill, when ICE officers tried to arrest Belgal, a Dominican national subject to an immigration detainer. Belgal was struck in the neck while his 5-year-old son sat in the back seat of his SUV. The boy was not physically hurt, but his mother has since said the child has suffered nightmares and stopped speaking after witnessing his father being shot.
Federal officials have defended the officer involved. The Department of Homeland Security said Belgal "weaponized his vehicle" against agents and alleged he has ties to the Trinitarios gang. The department also pointed to a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs and weapons possession. Surveillance footage later obtained by ABC News showed two plainclothes officers approaching Belgal's parked SUV with guns drawn, and one of them smashing the driver's window before he pulled away, although the footage did not show the alleged ramming that federal officials described.
Witnesses in Marble Hill described a chaotic, frightening scene in broad daylight. Neighbours said they saw a man on the ground, bleeding and pinned down by agents, with a small child in the car. Some agents wore masks rather than uniforms, and more than one was disguised as a construction worker in a yellow high-visibility vest, one of them carrying a military-style rifle. Residents said there was no reasonable way to identify the men as ICE agents. New York police officers were the ones who finally took Belgal from the agents, put him in a police car and drove him to NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital a few blocks away. Later that night, ICE took the wounded Belgal from the hospital in an unmarked vehicle and drove him to detention.
Belgal was treated in hospital before being transferred out of New York to a detention centre, the Department of Homeland Security said, adding that it would pursue criminal charges and seek his removal from the country. Federal officials have said the shooting is under review, while city leaders have pressed for body camera footage and a transparent account of what happened.
The choice of the Brooklyn Bridge was deliberate. The crossing links Manhattan and Brooklyn across the East River and carries tens of thousands of vehicles a day, so a sit-down on its roadway guarantees attention in a way a rally in a park does not. Protesters have used the bridge for decades for exactly that reason, and Wednesday's action followed that tradition: a small group, a famous backdrop, and a message aimed as much at cameras and commuters as at the officers who eventually cleared them away.
The timing mattered too. The protest came six days before the November 3 midterm elections, with immigration enforcement one of the most contested issues of the campaign, and three weeks after a shooting that has already become a symbol for critics of the Trump administration's enforcement tactics. For the organisers, the bridge offered a way to keep the Marble Hill case in the headlines at a moment when the city, and the country, are paying close attention to how federal agents operate on American streets.
It also carried a cost for ordinary New Yorkers. Drivers heading into Manhattan faced heavy delays, some of them for the better part of an hour, and livestream footage captured frustrated motorists pleading with protesters to let them through. That tension, between a protest designed to disrupt and commuters caught in the disruption, is now part of the story itself, and it is likely to feature in the debate over the arrests in the days ahead.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the Marble Hill episode an outrage at the time and said he had contacted President Donald Trump to demand an end to ICE enforcement in the city. Mamdani said he spent about two hours on the phone with the president and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, demanding that ICE leave the city and that Belgal be released. He got neither, and ICE drove Belgal away while the mayor was still talking.
Governor Kathy Hochul pressed federal authorities to release body camera footage from the shooting, and City Council Speaker Julie Menin also called for a transparent account of the encounter. Mamdani has previously said he supports abolishing ICE, describing the agency as an entity with "no interest in fulfilling its stated reason to exist" and accusing it of "terrorizing people, no matter their immigration status, no matter the facts of the law, no matter the facts of the case."
Federal officials have struck a very different note. The Department of Homeland Security has defended the officer, said Belgal endangered agents' lives by driving toward them, and criticised the city's sanctuary policies, which restrict local agencies from cooperating with ICE officers. The department said Belgal has associations with the Trinitarios gang, the same gang it says brutally killed a Customs and Border Protection officer last year.
On the bridge itself, the protesters' own words were the simplest statement of their case. Their chant, "NYPD, KKK, ICE, they're all the same!", accused local police and federal agents of acting as one force, while their shirts, asking "Have you seen my neighbor?", framed the issue as one of neighbours disappearing into detention. Their central demand, repeated in reporting from the scene, was that ICE leave New York City and that Belgal be freed.
The Brooklyn Bridge arrests matter for three reasons. First, they show how a single enforcement encounter can keep generating protest weeks later, especially when it involves a child witness, disputed video and a suspect moved out of state while still recovering. The Marble Hill shooting has not faded, and Wednesday's bridge blockade suggests it will not fade quietly.
Second, the protest sharpens a question that now runs through the midterm campaign: how far can, and should, federal immigration enforcement go on city streets, and what happens when local leaders and federal agencies give opposite answers? New York's mayor says ICE should leave; the federal government says it is staying and doing its job. The bridge protest put that clash in the middle of the evening commute.
Third, the arrests themselves will test the balance between protest rights and public order. Blocking a major bridge is a classic civil disobedience tactic, and it almost always ends in arrest. What charges are brought, how quickly those arrested are released, and whether prosecutors pursue the cases aggressively will all shape how the next protest unfolds, and whether organisers judge the tactic worth repeating.
In the immediate term, attention turns to the arrested protesters: what charges, if any, are filed, when they appear in court, and whether the NYPD releases a fuller account of the operation. Further details about Wednesday's arrests and the ongoing inquiry into the October 8 encounter were expected later in the day, according to reporting from the scene.
The Marble Hill investigation also continues. City leaders are still pressing for body camera footage, and federal officials have said criminal charges against Belgal and removal proceedings will follow. How that case proceeds, and whether any footage is released, will determine whether the anger that filled the bridge on Wednesday grows or eases.
More protests are likely. Demonstrations have continued outside the Brooklyn detention centre where Belgal is held, and organisers have shown they are willing to escalate to high-visibility targets. With the midterms six days away and immigration at the centre of the campaign, further actions in New York, and in other cities, should be expected before polling day.
How many people were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge? The NYPD confirmed "multiple" people were taken into custody, and law enforcement sources put the figure at about 13. An exact, official count and the charges involved had not been released at the time of reporting.
How long was the bridge blocked? Protesters blocked the Brooklyn-bound roadway for roughly 30 minutes on Wednesday afternoon. Officials said all lanes were open again shortly before 1:30 p.m.
Who is Oscar Belgal? Belgal is a 28-year-old Dominican national who was shot in the neck by an ICE officer in Marble Hill on October 8, 2026, while his 5-year-old son sat in the back seat of his car. He was treated in hospital and then transferred to immigration detention.
What do the protesters want? The demonstrators demanded Belgal's release and the withdrawal of ICE agents from New York City, a demand also made by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
What does the federal government say about the shooting? The Department of Homeland Security says Belgal "weaponized his vehicle" against agents, cites his criminal record and alleged gang ties, and says it will pursue criminal charges and seek his removal from the country.
Related coverage on US News Pulse: Brooklyn jury convicts Halima Salman in historic ISIS trial; New York AI chatbot law: Hochul bans bots pretending to be human for kids; Flavio Bolsonaro arrives in Miami after fleeing Brazil election defeat.
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