(AFP) – A US immigration officer on Monday fatally shot a man identified by rights groups as a 26-year-old Colombian, the second such killing by federal agents in less than a week. The shooting happened in Biddeford, a town of 22,000 people in the northern state of Maine, and is likely to fuel criticism of President Donald Trump’s deportation drive and its handling by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
US media identified the victim as Joan Sebastian Guerrero, who reportedly worked as a delivery driver and lived in Biddeford with his wife and three-year-old daughter. An ICE spokesperson said officers had tried to stop a vehicle at around 7:00 am (1100 GMT) after conducting surveillance of the last known address of a person with a deportation order. A vehicle “attempted to flee the scene and fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon. The driver of the vehicle was struck, and emergency services were immediately contacted. He passed away from his injuries,” they said.
Initially, Senator Angus King of Maine told reporters he understood, based on a conversation with Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, that the victim was the subject of an ICE arrest warrant over his immigration status. But a spokesperson for King later said the senator was told in a second conversation with Mullin that the victim was not the intended target of the warrant. “The person that was killed was not the person they were seeking,” King told CNN. King demanded a “full, transparent and open investigation,” but said the agents involved were apparently not wearing body cameras that would have recorded the incident. ICE said the agent would be placed on leave in line with protocol after police-involved shootings. The FBI earlier said it was also investigating.
The Colombian embassy said in a statement it had requested clarification from the Department of Homeland Security over the death of a Colombian national. Last week, a Mexican man was shot dead by an ICE agent during an attempted vehicle stop in Texas.
– ‘I tried to stop’ –
Daniel Boucher, 71, was nearby when the incident occurred and told AFP he heard a “lot of pop, pop, pops” before seeing ICE agents pull a person from a white car with a bloodied head and face. “At that point I clearly heard the victim say ‘I tried to stop,’ something to that effect,” he said. “Then he was on the ground. I could only see the legs and the stomach, and at one point, I could see that his stomach stopped going, and I knew that he had expired.” Boucher said that when he confronted one of the agents at the scene, the man had tried to run him over.
The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente Maine, which jointly identified the victim but did not name him, said the man was authorized to work in the United States. “We will not let this death be reduced to a footnote in this administration’s enforcement statistics,” said Crystal Cron, executive director of Presente Maine. Governor Janet Mills said she was “horrified by this tragedy.” The victim not being the intended target of the ICE operation “underscores the reckless and haphazard manner in which immigration enforcement operations are being conducted in Maine and across the country,” she wrote on X.
Images from the scene showed a police cordon in place on a residential street, with a forensics unit stationed next to a red tent. Some people placed candles and flowers on the street nearby. Protesters rallied in the area with signs reading “ICE Out!” and gathered at the office of Maine’s other senator, Susan Collins, a member of Trump’s Republican party. “A person has died, and their loved ones and the people of our community deserve clear answers about what happened,” Biddeford Mayor Liam LaFountain said in a statement.
Tasked with enforcing Trump’s immigration crackdown, ICE’s heavily armed agents have faced nationwide backlash for aggressive tactics, and for the shooting deaths of two US citizens this year in Minneapolis.
– Joseph Prezioso
© 2024 AFP
