A 26-year-old man was reportedly shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on Monday morning in Biddeford, Maine.
An agent opened fire on the individual after he allegedly used his vehicle as a weapon against the agents who were pursuing him for deportation, per The Associated Press. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told the outlet that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin informed him of what transpired.
“He was in a vehicle — pulled out in the vehicle, and the term the secretary used was ‘weaponized’ the vehicle and was shot by an ICE agent,” King said. “The question is, what did he do with his vehicle. Were officers threatened? Were the threats rising to the level that justified deadly force?”
He continued, “That’s what this investigation is all about and I certainly intend to stay after it to do everything I can to be sure the investigation is as transparent and thorough as possible.”
According to CNN, King’s office confirmed that the victim was not the target of the warrant.
DHS has yet to publicly release a statement on the matter.
The Maine Immigrants Rights Coalition published a press release stating that the victim was a Colombian native who had been authorized to work in the U.S. and had been granted a Social Security number.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills said in an X post that state police are working alongside the state’s attorney general’s office, the medical examiner’s office and federal officials to “determine the facts of what occurred.”
Second ICE shooting in less than a week
Monday’s shooting is the second ICE-related fatal shooting in the U.S. in less than a week.
Last Tuesday, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who had been living in the U.S. for 35 years, was fatally shot by ICE agents in Houston, Texas. Araujo was reportedly shot and killed after the vehicle he was driving was stopped by federal officials because they noticed “a white van with an individual who resembled the target” of an operation, per the BBC. Law enforcement officials said the vehicle Araujo was driving “rammed” an ICE vehicle and the agent fired in self-defense.
The van Araujo was driving was filled with other men on their way to a job site.
The incident is currently under federal investigation, though Araujo’s family is demanding that a separate, independent investigation be conducted.
“After nearly 35 years of working to give us the American dream, he made the choice to begin the process of obtaining his American dream through a work permit,” Araujo’s son Ronaldo Salgado said during a news conference last week. “We dotted every I, crossed every T, filled every document, attended every appointment. He was close to obtaining his legal status.”
“Had my father seen an emblem of ICE or an emblem that says anything about a law enforcement agency, my father would have complied,” he added.