Over a Month After ICE Killing in Biddeford, Grieving Family Waits for Answers

With Republican lawmakers refusing to use their congressional authority to investigate a federal agent's fatal shooting last month of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, Democratic leaders assembled a "shadow hearing" on Monday at a local high school, where the 25-year-old's grieving father was among those who spoke to a crowd of about 200 people and pleaded for answers about his son's killing.

“The death of Johan Sebastián, under those conditions, at the hands of ICE, filled our community with fear and uncertainty," said Omar Durán, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "That is why I ask only of God and of the justice system that my son’s case be brought to light, along with the cases of the many others who have had to go through something like this.”

Durán Guerrero was at least the 11th person to be fatally shot by federal agents since President Donald Trump began deploying ICE and other agencies under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to cities and towns across the US to carry out his mass deportation operation.

Federal agents have shot at more than 20 people on US streets under the Trump administration; Durán Guerrero was among several who have been shot at while driving a vehicle, which is against ICE's own policies.

Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) reported Monday that the ICE agents who were operating in Durán Guerrero's neighborhood in Biddeford on the morning of July 13 were actually looking for his roommate, who owned the car he was driving.

Pingree said agents did not have a final removal order for the person who was the target of their operation, contrary to what DHS has said about the case.

“This shocking revelation in clear contradiction to what ICE and DHS have been saying about the operation raises fundamental questions,” Pingree said. “How is ICE deciding who to target and detain in Maine? What information are agents relying on?”

"If ICE cannot accurately determine a person's immigration status or circumstance before taking enforcement action, that is a profound failure of competence and accountability," the congresswoman added.

Even in cases where ICE has a deportation order for a person, agents are prohibited from using deadly force unless they have reason to believe the target of the operation poses an imminent threat to an officer's or someone else's safety.

An agent identified as David Michael Brouillette shot Durán Guerrero, who had a 3-year-old daughter with his partner, and DHS has claimed that the officer fired his weapon because Durán Guerrero was trying to flee and Brouillette feared "for public safety."

The agents involved in the operation were not wearing body cameras that were turned on at the time of the shooting, but an eyewitness reported that Durán Guerrero said, "I tried to stop" when the officers pulled him out of his vehicle, bleeding profusely from his head. Surveillance footage taken from a nearby store showed a white car circling an intersection after the shooting before agents stopped it.

"If there were active body cameras on every law enforcement member who was participating there, we wouldn’t be looking at some scratchy videos from one store that’s over here, or one person that’s standing in their doorway that’s trying to get it,” Pingree said at a news conference after Monday's hearing. “We would actually know every moment that’s happened at the scene.”

Durán Guerrero worked as a delivery driver and a cleaner at a veterinary clinic, and had a valid work permit and a pending asylum case.

A lawyer for Durán Guerrero's family said state investigators have interviewed his partner, Karolina Rojas, but no federal agencies have ever contacted her following the killing.

"Any reasonable investigation would include interviewing the family and eyewitnesses,” the lawyer, Ben Gideon, said Monday.

DHS said after the shooting that its inspector general would investigate, but both the agency and the Justice Department refused to answer questions from The New York Times about whether the probe had begun.

The office of Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey is investigating the shooting, and is expected to present its findings to the Maine Deadly Force Review Panel. The panel can make recommendations to DHS, but it does not have jurisdiction over the federal agency.

Durán Guerrero's parents traveled from his home country of Colombia for the shadow hearing. His mother did not speak publicly, while his father described the "deep pain" of hearing his young granddaughter ask where Durán Guerrero is.

"Our dream was always to be reunited and to hold each other again," he said. "Today, that dream can no longer come true."