BIDDEFORD, Maine — Video captured by a witness shows federal agents pulling a limp man from a car and shackling his wrists moments after a fatal shooting Monday morning.
The witness said agents wearing green police vests were pursuing the white sedan when they used their SUV to hit its passenger side, bringing it to a stop and surrounding it with their guns drawn. When the driver did not comply with commands to exit the car, they fired gunshots at the vehicle, she said.
The video appears to show the aftermath of a shooting that rapidly drew attention early Monday morning when a Biddeford lawmaker posted to social media that Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers had been involved in a shooting in the middle of the city at the corner of Pool and Hill streets.
Protesters and Democratic political candidates rallied at Mechanics Park after the shooting. It came days after ICE officers killed a man in Texas, on the heels of the federal government’s immigration enforcement surge into Maine earlier this year and during the middle of a furious nominating race to find a candidate to run against Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.
Officials have not yet identified the shooting victim, but in a joint statement, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! Maine said he was a 26-year-old from Colombia who had authorization to work in the U.S. and had been issued a Social Security number.
Attorney General Aaron Frey’s office confirmed that an ICE officer was the shooter. The man who died may have been under orders to leave the country, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told U.S. Sen. Angus King, according to the Maine independent’s office. King said that the federal agents weren’t wearing body cameras.
Residents in the neighborhood just off the city’s downtown heard six gunshots at 7:17 a.m., according to audio from a Ring camera in a nearby apartment building shared with the Bangor Daily News. Soon after, the streets surrounding Pool and Hill streets were blocked off by caution tape as law enforcement swarmed the area, and social media lit up with chatter that immigration agents may have killed a man.
“It’s almost like it’s not real, to see it with my own eyes,” said Jessica Alfreds, who captured the audio of the gunshots on her Ring camera. Soon after, she ran to her second-floor window and watched three men in green vests running down the street.
The witness who saw and then filmed agents pulling the man from the sedan declined to be named given the sensitivity of the matter but provided an account of what she saw from her Pool Street residence. The BDN obtained a copy of the video from a neighbor.
She had just stepped onto her porch for her morning cigarette when she heard the squealing of tires and then a white SUV driving down the street. A white SUV was following it, then brought it to a stop by making a white turn and hitting the car’s passenger side, she said.
Officers wearing green vests with the word “police” in yellow surrounded the car and with their firearms raised, she said. They yelled for the driver to get out of the car with their hands up, she said. She said she heard officers yell “weapon” several times before firing at the car, she said.
The woman started to record as an officer stood at the open driver’s side door of the sedan and pulled a man with dark skin, pale t-shirt and dark pants from the cab and onto the pavement, chest-side down. A second officer then appears to help the first tie the man’s hands behind his back. A third officer talks on a cellphone in the background, the video shows.
The witness said that one officer had walked away after the shooting and started to cry, but returned to the man and started administering CPR when the other officers said “he has a pulse.” EMS arrived a few minutes later, she said.
She estimated they attempted to resuscitate him for a few more minutes. Around that point, she assumed from their behavior that the man had died. She initially shared it on social media before taking it down because of its upsetting nature, she said.
About an hour later, just before 8:30 a.m., Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, posted on social media that a person had been killed and ICE was involved. By mid-morning, residents and members of the press had gathered in the hot sun around the caution tape that condoned off the blocks surrounding the intersection of Pool and Hill streets.
In a statement, Gov. Janet Mills said she has been briefed about the Biddeford shooting, saying it involved federal law enforcement. A spokesperson for the FBI’s Boston field office said the agency responded immediately after the shooting but provided no other details.
Officials have not yet identified the shooting victim, but in a joint statement, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! Maine said he was a 26-year-old from Colombia who had authorization to work in the U.S. and had been issued a Social Security number.
One man who declined to be quoted said he had heard that a Spanish-speaking man had been shot by immigration agents. The man was in the area to provide interpreter services, and said he doubted that the local resident who told him that would want to speak to a reporter. Many immigrants are afraid to draw any attention to themselves right now, he said.
Monday morning’s shooting is at least the 11th fatal shooting involving ICE or U.S. Border Patrol agents since the beginning of the second administration of President Donald Trump. That includes this month’s fatal shooting of 52-year-old Lorenzo Araujo, a construction worker, in Houston, according to The Guardian.
BDN writer Christopher Burns contributed to this report.
