Brenden Cuni – A federal investigation reveals that the ICE supervisor seen brandishing a rifle at a Manhattan shooting scene has a documented history of legal challenges regarding unlawful arrests.
The man standing in the middle of a Manhattan street on Thursday. gripping a modified AR-15-style rifle with holographic sights. was not a tactical response officer from a local precinct. He was Brenden Cuni. an ICE supervisor from the agency’s National Fugitive Operations team. finding himself once again at the center of a volatile confrontation.
Witnesses watched as agents surrounded a car in the Marble Hill neighborhood near the Bronx on Thursday afternoon. Inside the vehicle sat a 5-year-old child. By the time the encounter concluded, Oscar Belgal had been shot in the neck and transported to a hospital. While the child appeared physically unharmed, those nearby reported hearing as many as seven rounds fired.
Cuni. who identified himself to NYPD officers on the scene. was the only federal agent captured on video wielding a weapon. While the Department of Homeland Security maintains that agents were attempting to apprehend an undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic with a prior conviction for grand larceny. the officer leading the charge carries a record that suggests this was not an isolated high-stakes encounter.
Federal court filings and public records paint a picture of an agent frequently at odds with the law he is tasked to enforce. Cuni has been accused of using a Taser on a man already in handcuffs. and activists have linked him to an operation in Minneapolis where a pregnant woman was allegedly forced to the ground. Recent months have seen federal judges repeatedly deem his arrests unlawful; one judge went as far as to label an arrest warrant he signed as “fraudulent.” In another instance. the government had to withdraw his sworn statements after video evidence directly contradicted his account. leading a judge to question the accuracy of his testimony.
The trajectory of Cuni’s career has been rapid. A DHS agent for nearly a decade. he began as a Border Patrol agent in San Diego in 2018 after appearing on the 2018 baseball roster for Felician University in New Jersey. where he listed his hometown as New Rochelle. He became a deportation officer in 2020, eventually securing a promotion to supervisory detention and deportation officer in December 2024. By May 2025. he had joined the National Fugitive Operations team. putting him on the ground for operations like last winter’s Metro Surge.
The administrative history of these arrests shows a recurring pattern: official accounts provided by Cuni have faced direct challenges from both surveillance footage and judicial scrutiny. As the investigation into Thursday’s shooting in Marble Hill continues. the presence of a supervisor with such a litigious and controversial track record creates a significant tension between the agency’s stated mission and the reality of its street-level enforcement.
ICE Manhattan shooting Brenden Cuni Oscar Belgal Marble Hill federal law enforcement misconduct immigration