NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – DDozens of people protested outside a hospital in Brooklyn Thursday night after a man was shot in the face by a U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement officer the day before.
The protest was outside Maimonides Medical Center, where Eric Diaz Cruz was hospitalized in critical condition. He allegedly intervened when ICE agents tried to arrest his mother’s boyfriend on West 12th Street in Gravesend Wednesday morning—and was shot in the face.
Federal authorities were trying to arrest Gasper Avendano-Hernandez, a Mexican accused of being in the country unlawfully. He had been deported twice and was recently arrested again on a forgery charge, officials said. The NYPD arrested him earlier this week but he was released before immigration agents could take him into custody, so they went to the home he was living at.
“Why in the hell are you going to pull a gun on someone who doesn’t have a gun, doesn’t have anything to defend himself?” Ortiz said.
Cruz’s brother was also in attendance at the protest. He said the ICE agent shot without warning.
“He didn’t say ‘get down’, he didn’t say nothing,” Cruz said. “And my brother didn’t have no weapons in his hand.”
He said his brother resisted because the agents “didn’t show him no papers, like ‘we’re the police.’ No badge, no nothing. No warrant, nothing. That’s why he reacted the way he reacted.”
At the protest, City Advocate Jumaane Williams said his message to ICE was: “We don’t want you here.”
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and other leaders held a news conference Friday morning over the incident. He said the ICE officer had not been wearing a body camera at the time and that the shooting shouldn't have happened in the first place.
"ICE shouldn’t be operating with impunity in our schools, places of worship, hospitals," Adams tweeted Friday. "We need strong federal accountability measures like body cams, just like we do for NYPD officers."
ICE released a statement saying the NYPD arrested Avendano-Hernandez on Monday on a felony charge of possessing a forged instrument but that he was released before ICE could detain him.
The statement reads: "The NYPD arrested Avendando-Hernandez Feb. 3 for possession of a forged instrument, a felony criminal charge. ICE attempted to lodge an immigration detainer after his most recent arrest, however the subject was released from local custody before ICE could lodge a detainer. This forced ICE officers to locate him on the streets of New York rather than in the safe confines of a jail. Avendando-Hernandez is currently in ICE custody, along with one additional individual whose identity has not been released. Two ICE officers were transported to a local hospital for treatment."
The shooting comes amid an escalating dispute between the administration of President Donald Trump and New York City over its sanctuary policies. ICE has expressed frustration in recent weeks that the city does not honor the vast majority of its detainer requests.
Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration has said it complies with detainer requests for defendants only after they are convicted of a violent or serious felony. The city does not turn over defendants awaiting trial.
City Hall spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein said in email that "an ICE official shot someone and minutes later they attempted to point the finger at the NYPD.''
"If that's not further proof that they're simply a mouthpiece for a man who lies hundreds of times a day and has absolutely no regard for public safety, I don't know what is,'' she said.