Person killed in Maine shooting involving ICE

A person was killed Monday morning in Biddeford, Maine, in a shooting involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, state House Speaker Ryan Fecteau said, prompting a state and federal law enforcement response and drawing protesters to the scene.

“This morning a shooting occurred in Biddeford,” Fecteau wrote on his personal Facebook page. “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.”

Biddeford police said officers responded Monday morning to an incident involving ICE personnel at the intersection of Pool and Hill streets and were providing security at the scene. The department directed questions about the incident to ICE. Fecteau said he did not immediately have additional information to provide.

The shooting occurred at about 7:20 a.m., an eyewitness identified as Lucas Scott told the Biddeford Gazette, according to The Guardian. Scott said he saw “at least two officers” wearing green ICE vests gathered around a white sedan stopped at an intersection. He said the agents were yelling “very loudly” and that he heard at least four gunshots.

Local media reported that authorities closed a road and that local law enforcement were joined by FBI officials at a crime scene in Biddeford, a city of more than 21,000 people about 15 miles south of Portland and 90 miles north of Boston. The Portland Press Herald reported that crowds gathered in protest a relatively short time after the shooting.

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security could not immediately be reached for comment, The Guardian reported. Biddeford police did not comment to Reuters and referred questions to ICE, while the mayor did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Former Maine state Sen. Troy Jackson, who is running for the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Maine, said on X that he had “been alerted to the fatal ICE shooting in Biddeford” Monday morning.

“Our team is monitoring this situation very closely and will [provide] updates as we learn more,” Jackson wrote. “My heart is with Biddeford – and with all Mainers.” In a follow-up post, Jackson wrote, “Our immigrant communities are under attack by ICE,” and said the agency “must be abolished.”

The Maine shooting came six days after an ICE officer fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican man and local builder, during an attempted vehicle stop in Houston.

Security camera footage obtained by CBS affiliate KHOU-TV showed ICE officers in unmarked vehicles following Araujo after he picked up co-workers for a construction job. DHS said officers believed one of the men in the van resembled someone they were seeking and that Araujo tried to run over an officer, who fired in self-defense.

An attorney for two men in the van disputed that account, saying the ICE officer fired into the vehicle through a passenger-side window after Araujo had parked. “Lorenzo had already parked the van. The ICE agent reaches in, fires a shot directly in front of Victor’s face, strikes Lorenzo on the side,” attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra said in an Instagram video.

The ICE officers involved in the Houston shooting were not wearing body cameras and did not have dashboard cameras in their vehicles. The FBI is investigating that shooting.