ICE officer who fatally shot driver in Maine was 'fearing for public
safety,' agency says
[July 14, 2026]
By PATRICK WHITTLE, LEAH WILLINGHAM and JACK BROOK A
BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) — An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent
fatally shot a motorist in Maine on Monday, the second time in a week
that ICE has used deadly force and at least the ninth death since
President Donald Trump began his immigration crackdown.
Immigrant rights groups identified the man who was killed in Biddeford
as a 26-year-old native of Colombia. The Colombian Embassy said it was
in contact with U.S. authorities about the Colombian national's death
and “is providing the necessary consular assistance to his family.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, said in a
post on X that agents were surveilling an address for a person with a
final order of removal from the country. When ICE tried to stop a
vehicle driven by someone coming from that address, the "vehicle
attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer
discharged his weapon,” the department said.
Prior to the brief ICE statement on the incident, Maine U.S. Sen. Angus
King said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the
officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon
against ICE agents in Biddeford, a coastal city roughly 15 miles (24
kilometers) southwest of Portland. The agents involved didn’t have body
cameras, he said.
When asked about the contrasting statements, King told CNN that that's
what the investigation is all about.
“Did this young man actually try to run over an ICE agent or was he in
danger of running over other people in the street?" he said. “Was there
a reasonable expectation of bodily harm or deadly force to justify this
shooting?”
DHS did not immediately respond to an email seeking clarity on what led
to the shooting.
King, an independent, said Mullin also told him the officers were in
Biddeford to serve an arrest warrant but that it was not for the person
who was shot. King said Mullin told him that earlier information that
the man was the target of an enforcement action was incorrect.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said Mullin told her the
Homeland Security Department’s Office of Inspector General is
investigating in cooperation with the FBI.
Messages seeking comment were left for the inspector general’s office
and the Maine Department of Public Safety.
The Maine attorney general’s office, which is also investigating, said
initial statements suggest the motorist was trying to flee in the
direction of the agent. The office said the agent who killed him has
been placed on leave.
Witness says he heard driver say, ‘I tried to stop’
Daniel Boucher said he looked out his third-floor window after hearing a
“pop, pop, pop” sound and saw a small car “turned 90 degrees to the
curb” with an SUV behind it. The driver was wounded and the car started
moving down the street until the SUV hit it, Boucher said.
“His face was bloody. His head was bloody,” Boucher said, getting choked
up. “I clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop.'"
Boucher said he saw an ICE officer bring a medical bag to where the man
was lying before an ambulance and fire truck arrived. At one point,
Boucher said, the agent who shot the man walked close to him.
“I was emotional and I just let him have it, and he looked at me and
said, ‘He tried to run me over,’ or something to that effect," Boucher
said. "I don’t remember his exact words.”
Video from a security camera at a nearby business, obtained by the AP,
shows a white vehicle approaching an intersection at a modest speed
before making several slow circles. A law enforcement SUV blocked its
path and two officers open the driver’s door and dragged out a limp
body.
It was not clear from the video at what point shots were fired.
The man was authorized to work in the US, advocates say
Two advocacy groups — the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and
Presente! — said the man who was killed was authorized to work in the
U.S.
After the shooting, his family contacted the Immigrants’ Rights
Coalition, but they weren't ready to speak publicly about the shooting,
said the group's executive director, Mufalo Chitam.
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Protesters gather near the scene of a shooting involving U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Monday, July 13, 2026 in
Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Mary Hayes, who lives close to where the shooting happened, said the
man lived nearby with his wife and daughter.
“I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead
body on the ground,” Hayes told the AP as she held a piece of
cardboard with “No ICE Stop ICE” written on it. “I watched a little
girl crying with a little pink backpack on because she’s never going
to see her father again.”
Sadie Dilboy said the man killed in the shooting regularly came to
her laundromat and would bring his daughter, who he'd give quarters
to buy candy from the vending machine.
“He was such a good person,” she said. “He was always cleaning up.”
Anti-ICE protesters gather near the scene
Several hundred demonstrators gathered in Biddeford on Monday night
to wave anti-ICE signs and call for the agency to be abolished.
“We will always be a city of immigrants,” said Maine Speaker of the
House Ryan Fecteau, a Democrat from Biddeford.
A handful of pro-ICE and pro-Trump protesters demonstrated across
the street.
Some demonstrators had gathered in the city within hours of the
shooting. Amy Goodman arrived with a sign that said “Stop Killing
Us” and directed it toward police working at the scene.
“Sadly, it’s something we’re seeing a whole lot more often lately,
and I’m mad about it,” she said.
A recent uptick in Trump's immigration crackdown
On July 7, an ICE officer fatally shot 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado
Araujo, of Houston, after federal agents driving unmarked vehicles
pursued him while he was taking his construction crew to a job site.
The shootings come amid a Trump administration push to carry out its
mass deportations agenda. During the five-day period at the end of
June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people.
The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer
cracking down on individual cities, the arrests are surging. The
administration’s enforcement efforts were widely condemned last
winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in
Minnesota.
Hundreds of Maine ICE arrests since Trump’s return
ICE had a significant presence in Maine earlier this year, which
prompted several protests. Immigration officials later said in late
January that they had ceased “enhanced operations” in Maine after
hundreds of arrests.
A Homeland Security spokesperson said at the time that some Maine
arrests were of people “convicted of horrific crimes" including
aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child.
Court records show that while some had felony convictions, others
had unresolved immigration proceedings or had been arrested but
never convicted of a crime.
ICE arrested 546 people in Maine between the start of Trump’s second
term and March 11, 2026, the most recent data available, according
to ICE arrest data provided to the University of California,
Berkeley Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the AP.
About 45% of arrested people had criminal backgrounds. During the
equivalent 416-day period before Trump took office, roughly 69% of
those arrested had criminal backgrounds, the data shows.
___
Willingham reported from Boston and Brook reported from New Orleans.
Associated Press reporters Michael R. Sisak in New York, Aaron
Kessler in Washington, Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Hallie Golden in
Seattle contributed to this report.
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