The killing of Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero in Biddeford is a tipping point in a defining and deadly theme of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown: agents shooting at people in vehicles.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Guerrero around 7:17 a.m. on Monday morning while he was driving through a residential neighborhood just off the city’s downtown, according to witness accounts, official statements and videos.
The killing ignited outrage and drew fresh scrutiny to the frequency at which immigration agents have shot at vehicles while pursuing Trump’s aggressive deportation goals. Federal and state authorities have launched investigations, but the shooting already looks to have helped force a change in federal policies.
By Tuesday, ICE agents were ordered to end most vehicle stops. Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who is running for a historic sixth term in a race that will help decide control of the chamber, said she urged the Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin last night to adopt that change. Democrats looking to oppose her called for ICE to be abolished.
It was the second time in a week that immigration authorities killed a man in his car, following the shooting of a Mexican man during a Houston traffic stop on July 7. Five of the six fatal shootings by ICE officers since the president took office have involved people in vehicles, according to a New York Times analysis. Both the Maine and Texas shootings involved immigrants who were not the subject of arrest warrants.
The question of whether the use of deadly force could have been prevented is different from whether it was legally justified. Officers can only legally use deadly force only when they reasonably believe someone poses an immediate threat of death or serious injury to the officer or someone else, based on a standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Department of Justice addresses moving vehicles explicitly in its deadly force policy. It is only allowed when “the vehicle is operated in a manner that threatens to cause death or serious physical injury to the officer or others, and no other objectively reasonable means of defense appear to exist, which includes moving out of the path of the vehicle,” it states.
But the high court has avoided the question of whether an officer’s decisions led to the inevitability of deadly force. The justices revisited the standard in a case last year involving another Texas traffic stop in which an officer stepped onto a moving car and fatally shot the driver. The court did not address whether the officer created the danger justifying force.
Officers are generally encouraged in training to avoid putting themselves in the path of moving vehicles given the safety risks, said Spencer Fomby, a use-of-force expert who incorporated fleeing vehicles into training scenarios when he was a police captain in Berkeley, California.
The exceptions tend to be a “truly weaponized vehicle,” Fomby said, such as when a person drives into a crowd and the only way to stop the driver is to shoot them.
“That is a very unique situation and actually very rare,” he said.
A federal policy posted online similarly advises federal officers to consider “the hazards that may be posed to law enforcement and innocent bystanders” before using deadly force against a moving vehicle.
ICE has released limited information about the shooting in Biddeford. Initially it looked as if the agency would embrace the idea that Guerrero, a 26-year-old husband and father from Colombia, had “weaponized” his vehicle, based on comments that Mullin used when he first briefed U.S. Sen. Angus King on the incident, according to the independent senator’s office.
But the agency later released a statement saying Guerrero had “attempted to flee the scene” when officers fired. Attorney General Aaron Frey’s office also released a Monday statement describing Guerrero as attempting to flee agents when he was shot.
Accounts of the shooting began to emerge almost immediately on Monday morning. The crack of gunfire startled nearby residents who were just getting up for work. A woman who had just stepped outside for her morning cigarette witnessed federal agents ram their SUV into Guerrero’s white sedan, bringing it to a stop at the intersection of Pool and Hill streets.
Agents surrounded the car and fired when it started to move again, she recounted in an interview. She was recording on her phone when an officer pulled the driver’s limp body out of the vehicle and onto a crosswalk. He seemed to be dead within minutes, she said.
Her description broadly matched those of other witnesses who spoke to reporters. The Boston division of the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general is conducting a review of the shooting, as is Frey’s office. It is unclear how the dual reviews will play out. The Maine AG’s office has not ruled against any officer since it began tracking that data 30 years ago.