ICE shooting in Maine leaves Colombian father dead, probe underway

An ICE agent shot and killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian father, on a residential street in Biddeford after 7 a.m. Monday, and federal and state authorities are now investigating the killing. For hours, the Department of Homeland Security said nothing publicly before saying the officer fired because he was “fearing for public safety,” a delay that intensified questions about how the operation unfolded and why the agency’s account took so long to emerge.

ICE said agents were conducting surveillance at the last known address of a person ordered to leave the country when the vehicle tried to flee. The Maine Attorney General’s Office said the subject attempted to flee in a vehicle toward the officer. But Sen. Angus King later said his office was told by DHS that Guerrero was not the intended target of the warrant, a detail that widened the accountability gap between the agency’s first explanation and the information relayed to one of Maine’s senators.

Witness accounts added a more chaotic picture. One resident said she heard a single shot, then rapid additional shots, before seeing a white car stopped by officers and plainclothes agents running down the street. Another witness account described Guerrero bleeding from the head, and he appeared to say, “I tried to stop.” Immigration advocates told local outlets that Guerrero had been authorized to work in the United States.

The FBI and the Maine Attorney General’s Office are investigating the shooting. King said he wanted a full, fair and transparent investigation and raised concern that ICE agents were not wearing body cameras. Gov. Janet Mills called the development “even more disturbing and infuriating” and said it underscored the “reckless and haphazard manner” in which immigration enforcement operations are being conducted in Maine and across the country. Sen. Susan Collins also called for a full and impartial investigation.

Public reaction came quickly. Protesters began gathering around 11:30 a.m. at Mechanics Park in Biddeford and swelled to more than 100 people. Later Monday, hundreds gathered in Portland’s Monument Square for a vigil, as residents described a sharp rise in ICE activity in recent weeks.

The shooting landed less than a week after another fatal ICE-related shooting in Houston, sharpening scrutiny of federal use of force, surveillance tactics, vehicle stops and body-camera policy. The central question now is whether ICE’s account of a fleeing vehicle and a public-safety threat matches what witnesses saw on the ground, and whether federal enforcement in Maine can withstand the transparency test this case now demands.