An ICE-involved shooting has left one man dead in Maine, with an eyewitness saying he was killed in front of his three-year-old daughter, who was wearing Bluey pajamas.
The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition identified the victim as a 26-year-old Colombian man. The group said he was authorized to work in the U.S. and had been issued a Social Security number. He was reportedly heading to work at the time he was shot.
The account appeared to change later Monday. Sen. Angus King, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he spoke with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who confirmed that the man who was fatally shot was “NOT the target of the warrant.” King had earlier said Mullin told him the man was the target of a warrant.
The victim’s identity has not yet been publicly confirmed by federal agents, but it comes less than one week after a federal agent shot and killed a man in Texas who was also not the target of a department operation.
The Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies, guided by border czar Tom Homan, have created nothing but chaos at the Department of Homeland Security.
The administration originally pushed for around 3,000 daily arrests, but agents’ aggressive tactics to achieve that came up short. President Donald Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March, replacing her with Mullin after Noem’s public deportation raids triggered a wave of protests, creating violent standoffs and large public pushback.
Details about the circumstances surrounding the Maine shooting on Monday remain scarce, and the Department of Homeland Security has not responded to the Daily Beast’s repeated requests for further information.
Videos taken by witnesses show at least two men wearing vests reading “Police” and “Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
One video shows a white Kia sedan driving in circles as law enforcement appears to attempt to enter the car through the driver’s-side door. Another video shows a white Ford Explorer that appears to have hit the Kia on its passenger side, with a person lying in the street near the incident. Images also showed bullet holes in the Kia.
At one point, the victim is seen being put in handcuffs as agents remove him from his car and put him on the ground.
One witness, Cecelia Humiston, 22, told the Portland Press Herald that she was asleep when she heard a commotion nearby. When she went to check it out, she saw a person lying on the ground. She then heard another woman yelling, “You took her dad, you took her dad!”
“They were with a little girl, she couldn’t have been older than three,” Humiston told the outlet. “She was still in her Bluey pajamas.”
She also described law enforcement as “rude,” and said they barricaded the family’s car from leaving the area.
Another witness, Lucas Scott, told the outlet that he heard ICE officers yelling as he approached the scene.
“The ICE agent was yelling and drew his weapon, and he kept yelling and yelling and warning the person driving, which is when the car was put into drive and was trying to hit the ICE officer, and he fired,” Scott said.
Another local resident, Daniel Boucher, told the outlet that he heard gunshots as he was getting ready for work. He said he looked out of his window and saw a small white car before agents pulled the man out.
“He was bleeding profusely from the head,” Boucher said. “He was talking. He said, ‘I tried to stop.’”
In a video posted on social media, House Democrat Chellie Pingree said she was “disturbed and angry” at the news, and posed a pointed question to ICE agents: “Why are you in Maine?”
“I, of course, need to know all of the answers here. Were they pursuing someone with a criminal record? Was this a random traffic stop? How did this possibly happen, and why was this person shot? Were the officers wearing body cameras, and will there be investigations?” Pingree asked.
Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who is running for re-election in a tight race, has called for a “full and impartial investigation” into the shooting.
Hundreds of protesters swarmed her local Biddeford office on Monday afternoon, which is about four blocks away from the site of the shooting, carrying signs reading “ICE Out Now” and “I Stand With Immigrants.” They could also be heard chanting “vote her out.”
The Maine Attorney General’s office has said it is investigating the fatal shooting alongside local and federal authorities.
The ICE-involved shooting comes six days after an ICE agent shot and killed a Mexican immigrant, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was headed to work in Houston.
ICE originally described the incident as targeted immigration enforcement, but it was later reported that Salgado Araujo was not the target of the operation.
The uptick in ICE-involved shootings has renewed calls for accountability for the agency after two back-to-back killings earlier this year of Minnesota residents: 37-year-old mother Renee Good and 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti. The Trump administration originally tried to portray both Good and Pretti as “domestic terrorists,” prompting public outrage.
The shooting in Maine marks at least the 11th fatal shooting involving federal immigration agents since the start of Trump’s second term.
Earlier this year, Maine saw a surge in ICE operations as part of the administration’s “Operation Catch of the Day.”
