No Charge in Biddeford ICE Shooting

Durán Guerrero is dead, and no one has been charged. Emails from 2021 can tell a prosecutor where to look. They do not prove what an officer saw in the seconds before the shots, and they are not a case. The decision still sits with the attorney general.

Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 25, was shot and killed on July 13 during an immigration stop in Biddeford, Maine. He was in a car. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said he tried to flee the stop and that an officer fired out of fear for public safety. The Department of Homeland Security has not named the officer. No criminal charge has been filed.

A former wife of David Brouillette has said he called her after the shooting, told her he fired, and asked her to lie for him. Sen. Angus King said a Homeland Security official told him Durán Guerrero was not the target of the operation. Lawyers for the family say he had work authorization and no criminal record.

Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey and the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general are investigating. No decision has been announced. Frey has been expected to decide before he leaves office in December. An open investigation is not a finding that the shots were lawful, and it is not a charge.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Durán Guerrero was shot four times, and that in 2021 Brouillette emailed his sister about her longtime partner, a Colombian man who was in the United States legally. In one message he wrote that the man's "bloodline knows nothing about what it takes to earn and then CHERISH the freedom America offers." The sister and the partner are not named here. The Times, citing people familiar with his hiring, also reported that he did not take ICE's full training course. Homeland Security said Wednesday that claims of substandard training or vetting are false.