Outrage over the fatal shooting of an immigrant father in Maine intensified Friday after reports revealed the violent past and serious mental health struggles of the ICE officer who allegedly pulled the trigger.
The ICE officer who allegedly killed 25-year-old Colombian national Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford on Monday was identified by The Associated Press and Portland Press Herald as David Brouillette, 37.
Maine Senator Angus King has said that Durán Guerrero was not subject to an arrest warrant and that ICE officers at the scene weren’t wearing body cameras. Immigrant advocacy groups also said he had a Social Security number and was authorized to work in the U.S.
Brouillette told an ex-wife, Ashley Brouillette, late last year that he was hired by ICE, but she didn’t believe him at the time because of his long history of psychiatric issues, Ashley Brouillette told the AP.
In addition to mental health struggles that dated to his childhood, Ashley Brouillette and other family members claimed to AP that he had a history of violent behavior that included assaulting women and tossing boiling water at Ashley Brouillette as she held their daughter.
The terrifying incidents reportedly include a voicemail message in which he allegedly told a family member that he believed someone should slit her throat, and multiple requests for temporary protection in which another ex-wife alleged that he stalked and harassed her.
That ex-wife also alleged that Brouillette — who doesn’t appear to have a criminal record — physically and verbally abused his daughter, who told the AP he once tackled her and smashed spaghetti into her hair, and on another occasion dragged her around the house as she cried.
Brouillette didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment, according to the AP and the Press Portland Press Herald, which said it tried to reach him at his home, which is located down a long dirt road with a “No Trespassing” sign.
In response to an inquiry from The Independent, an ICE spokesperson declined to detail the vetting process Brouillette underwent before being hired.
“We will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers,” the spokesperson said in a prepared statement. “Publicizing their identities puts their lives and the lives of their families at serious risk.”
The White House declined to comment.
“This is the kind of person that Donald Trump is giving a gun to and sending out on the street to terrorize innocent people,” the progressive group, Occupy Democrats, said on social media. “It just goes to show that they are doing ZERO vetting and don’t care at ALL about who dies as a consequence.”
Another social media user wrote: “They really out here just hiring anybody to join ICE because wtf???!!!”
In December, ICE announced it had received more than 220,000 employment applications after offering a signing bonus of up to $50,000, up to $60,000 in student loan repayment and up to 25 percent in premium pay.
A total of 11,751 applicants were hired as law enforcement officers, criminal investigators, attorneys and support staff, which ICE called the “most successful federal law enforcement agency recruitment campaign in American history.”
David Brouillette reportedly worked as a truck driver and real estate agent before being hired by ICE, following a circuitous career that included stints as a soldier, prison guard and hospital police officer.
Brouillette was a member of his high school’s Naval Junior ROTC and planned to attend college before becoming a police officer, AP said, citing photos and other published in the school’s yearbook.
Military recruiters initially rejected him due to his mental health diagnoses, but he went off his medications and was later able to enlist in the Maine National Guard before joining the Army in January 2010, according to AP.
He was deployed to Afghanistan from May 2012 to February 2015, with an immediate relative telling AP that the tour of duty “destroyed him.”
“They took someone who was extremely mentally ill and turned him into a killing machine,” the relative said.
After leaving the Army, Brouilette worked as a correction officer at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham for a year before resigning in 2016, according to the Portland Press Herald, which cited public employment records and other documents.
He was reportedly hired in 2017 by the Department of Veterans Affairs as a police officer at the Togus VA Center in Augusta, Maine, and he worked for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services for eight months during 2019 and 2020.
In 2021, he was working at the Togus VA Center and receiving disability benefits through the VA, the Press Herald said, citing court papers tied to a dispute with another ex-wife.
Court records from a matter involving child support payments also show that he told a judge he’d worked as a truck driver until health concerns forced him to resign that job in January 2025, according to the Press Herald.
In March 2025, he passed an exam to sell real estate, AP said, adding that a since-deleted Facebook post by Realty of Maine said he was hired to work in its Bangor office.
The company no longer lists him on its website and didn’t return messages seeking comment, AP said.
