NEW YORK — An off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was shot in a Manhattan park after an apparent robbery gone wrong, New York City police and federal officials said Sunday.
The 42-year-old officer was in stable condition after the Saturday attack and is expected to survive. A spokesperson for the New York Police Department said there was no indication the shooting was politically motivated.
The agent, who was not in uniform, was sitting in a park beneath the George Washington Bridge when he was approached by a man riding on the back of a moped, who shot him in the face and arm, police said. The off-duty officer returned fire as the moped sped off.
No arrests had been made as of Sunday afternoon, according to a police spokesperson.
The Department of Homeland Security shared video online of the two men on a moped, alleging the shooter was caught entering the country illegally in 2023 but released.
The NYPD spokesperson said they had no information about the source of that claim.
In a social media post Sunday afternoon, President Trump seized on the shooting, alleging it was evidence of Democrats’ failures to secure the border. “The CBP Officer bravely fought off his attacker, despite his wounds, demonstrating enormous Skill and Courage,” he wrote.
The shooting comes as federal officials say there has been a surge of attacks on agents carrying out Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Enforcement officers involved in the crackdown often cover their faces, which critics say spreads fear and panic across communities and imperils citizens as well as immigrants without legal status. The Trump administration defends masking, which it says is needed to avoid harassment of agents in public and online.
On Sunday, the acting director of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, said he would allow agents to continue covering their faces, which he called a safety measure “If that’s a tool that the men and women of ICE that keeps themselves and their families safe, then I will allow it,” he said.