Another Fatal Shooting Involving ICE—This Time in Maine
Article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
The shooting in the coastal town of Biddeford comes less than a week after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed by federal immigration agents in Houston, Texas.
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The speaker of Maine’s state House of Representatives said the FBI was expected to investigate Monday morning after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were reportedly “involved” in a fatal shooting in Biddeford—the second shooting involving ICE on the streets of an American city in less than a week.
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“This morning a shooting occurred in Biddeford,” said Speaker Ryan Doughty Fecteau, a Democrat. “A person was killed. ICE was involved. State Police and the Department of Public Safety are now on scene to gather details and would expect the FBI to investigate as well.”
Few details were known about the shooting initially. Some streets in the town, located about 18 miles south of Portland, were closed due to an “active crime scene,” according to News Center Maine.
Former state Senate President Troy Jackson, a progressive who is running to be the state’s Democratic candidate for US Senate, expressed solidarity with the town “and with all Mainers”—who include about 56,000 immigrants, many of whom have lived in fear of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation and detention operation in recent months.
A Biddeford resident named Daniel Boucher told The Portland Press Herald he had heard a loud sound outside “like fireworks going off” while he was getting ready for work, and rushed to the window where he saw “an SUV trying to ram a small white car in the intersection” near his house.
Agents in vests stopped the car and pulled a man out of the vehicle.
“He was bleeding profusely from the head,” Boucher told the Press Herald. “He was talking. He said, ‘I tried to stop.’”
Another resident identified as Em said she thought she had heard several gunshots around 7:15 am:
Em, who asked to be identified only by first name because of her fear of ICE, watched from her window as the small white car circle in the intersection as if the driver had no control.
“Two plain clothes ICE agents with vests on pressed up against the driver’s side door trying to guide it to not hit anything,” she said. “All of a sudden it seemed like six people with vests on were running down the street. I didn’t know where they were coming from.”
Em said agents appeared to crash a vehicle into the smaller car to get it to stop, then the driver was pulled out.
“No one went to him and no one did anything,” she said, her voice choking with tears.
The Press Herald posted a video showing a white car circling in an intersection before an officer appeared to try to stop it.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/iicxhLRsGmY?rel=0(Video: Portland Press Herald)
Another eyewitness, identified as 18-year-old Lucas Scott, described a car “trying to hit the ICE officer.” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said he had “some doubts as to intent” and noted that “trying to flee in panic is far more common than trying to hit anyone.”
Trump’s deployment of ICE in Maine briefly received national attention in January. Federal agents have continued to arrest members of immigrant communities in the state after Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) claimed she had received assurances from the Department of Homeland Security that the “surge” in ICE agents had ended.
Residents of Biddeford told the Press Herald they had noticed increased ICE activity in the historic working-class town in recent weeks.
Jordan Wood, an organizer who is also running for US Senate following former Democratic candidate Graham Platner’s withdrawal from the race to unseat Collins, said Monday that “ICE is dangerously out of control and an embarrassment to our country.”
“We are waiting for more details, and Mainers deserve the full truth,” said Wood, adding a call to abolish ICE “and replace it with an agency that answers to the people.”
The shooting came days after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old construction worker in Houston, Texas, was killed by an ICE agent.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, another US Senate candidate, noted that at least 11 people have now been killed by ICE or Border Patrol agents this year.
The local group Biddeford Saco for Racial Justice said a protest would be held at nearby Mechanics Park at noon local time.
Jackson said he would be attending.
“We all need answers,” he said in a video he posted on social media, “and we deserve to know what happened here.”
Article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
