The ICE agent who allegedly shot and killed a Colombian national in Maine this week has a deeply troubling mental health history, his relatives and an ex-wife say.
David Brouillette killed 26-year-old Joan Sebastian Guerrero in front of his 3-year-old daughter in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday, the ICE agent’s ex-wife, Ashley Brouillette, said in an interview with the Portland Press Herald. David, 37, had called her and admitted to it while defending his actions, she said.
Ashley had had concerns about David’s mental health, she also told the paper. David is a U.S. Army veteran who had been receiving disability from the Department of Veterans Affairs, court records show. Ashley told the Press Herald that she had gone to David’s superiors with her concerns.
Ashley also claimed that David was abusive while they were married for two years, beginning when she was 18 years old.
Several of David’s close relatives gave a fuller picture. They told the Associated Press that he had mental health issues since childhood and was unfit to work in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, his disabilities compounded by his service in Afghanistan.
David deployed to the country from May 2012 to February 2013. He left the service in December 2015, having attained the rank of sergeant.
“Afghanistan destroyed him—trained him to be a killing monster, a machine,“ an immediate relative said. ”They took someone who was extremely mentally ill and turned him into a killing machine.”
This relative explained that, as a child, David had been diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder—conditions that Ashley confirmed, according to the AP. Additionally, the relative said that David, who they described as “extremely mentally ill,” attempted suicide twice when he was 12, and was hospitalized on multiple occasions.
This relative added that they had broken off contact with David, fearing he would harm them.
David’s work history after leaving the Army shows varied and relatively brief stints in multiple fields.
After leaving the Army, he was a corrections officer at Maine Correctional Center. He resigned a year later in 2016, according to the Press Herald.
From 2019 to 2020, David was employed by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services as a human services enforcement agent. A department spokesperson told the publication that he resigned after eight months.
For a period before January 2025, David was working as a truck driver, he told a judge during a child support payment hearing. That month, he resigned, citing health reasons.
In 2024 and 2025, David was a volunteer firefighter in Manchester, a small town near the state capital of Augusta, about 70 miles northeast of Biddeford. But the second of his two short stints ended when he was “removed” after confrontations with department leadership, including a shouting match and refusal to follow orders, staff told the paper.
Ashley Brouillette said that when David called her about the shooting, “He was asking me to lie for him and to cover for his character.”
“I told him that I was not going to lie for him,” she told the Press Herald. “And then he tried to say that it was a justified shooting because the guy tried to hit him with his car.”
Ashley said she told him: “Nowhere in there does it show that this man charged at you with a car.”
“In his head it’s justified,” she said. “He’s unusually calm about it.”
In a statement from DHS almost 12 hours after the shooting, the department claimed the officer who shot Guerrero did so due to public safety concerns. The department insisted to members of Congress in statements that the driver had “weaponized his vehicle toward law enforcement.” If evidence supporting that version of events actually exists, it hasn’t been made public.
Ashley added that since her ex-husband’s name has been mentioned in the context of the shooting, she has received calls threatening her and her family.
The Press Herald notes that David has been unreachable by several means.
When asked about Brouillette, an ICE spokesperson told the paper that the officer “in question has nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience with required training.”
In a statement, the agency said federal authorities “will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers.”
“Doxxing our officers puts their lives and their families in serious danger,” the ICE spokesperson said. “Now, thanks to the malicious rhetoric of sanctuary politicians, they are under constant threat from violent agitators.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to ICE for comment.
