A month after a man was shot by ICE in Biddeford, his family is waiting for answers
A memorial for Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero at the intersection of Hill and Pool streets in Biddeford on July 14. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
The family of a man who was shot and killed by a federal immigration officer in Biddeford last month is still waiting for answers and for investigators to return his personal belongings — including the jewelry he was wearing and his daughter’s toys.
The Office of the Maine Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General both have announced investigations into the fatal July 13 shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. His partner and his sister met with a detective from the state attorney general’s office the week after the shooting and signed an authorization form agreeing that the state could take and search the car that Guerrero had been driving, according to their lawyers.
The state attorney general’s office declined to provide information about its search of the car to attorneys representing Guerrero’s family, according to emails they exchanged last month about personal items that were with the 25-year-old when he died.
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The attorneys said last month that the family hoped for criminal charges. David Brouillette was identified by several people who know him as the ICE agent who shot Guerrero. DHS has declined multiple requests to name the agent involved in the shooting.
Since then, lawyers say the family has received no investigative updates from the state, nor any word from DHS.
Both the state attorney general’s office and DHS declined to comment on the investigations or provide updates when reached on Monday.
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Sean Murphy, an attorney for Guerrero’s family, said he has asked the state attorney general’s office at least twice to return Guerrero’s personal belongings that are not evidence. In emails to the office last month, which were reviewed by the Portland Press Herald, Murphy listed Guerrero’s clothing, jewelry, cellphone, toys belonging to his daughter and his partner’s keys.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Bogue, who leads the office’s criminal division, told Murphy the office would not identify law enforcement agencies or officers with access to the items. She confirmed that the state had two pieces of jewelry that could be returned — a yellow bracelet and a silver earring — and found a cellphone that would be “among the items that can be returned once the processing of the vehicle is complete.”
“I do not have an update on full vehicle inventory at this time,” Bogue wrote in an email to Murphy on July 23. “Forensic processing takes additional time and resources. There was a delay in processing as we gathered consent from interested parties.”
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Murphy said that, as of Tuesday, the family was still waiting to receive the personal items.
He also asked that Guerrero’s legal documents be returned. He said in an interview that the records are important for efforts to repatriate Guerrero’s remains, which were sent to a Maine funeral home, to Colombia so that he can be buried there. A death certificate lists Guerrero’s cause of death as “withheld at the request” of the attorney general, Murphy said.
Murphy said he was unsure which agency has custody of the car and personal belongings found in it and on Guerrero’s body. He said he was concerned such items could disappear.
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Murphy acknowledged in an email to the attorney general’s office that some of Guerrero’s property could contain evidence relevant to the investigation, such as blood or bullet holes. He requested confirmation that those items were in the state’s possession, saying he did so out of a “fear that these items or documents could disappear in the possession of an investigative body, and especially a federal investigative body that may have a self-interest in making these items or documents disappear.”
DHS did not respond to a request for comment about the concerns raised by attorneys for Guerrero’s family. A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said on Monday they could not comment on questions about the investigation or Guerrero’s belongings.
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Murphy and Ben Gideon, another attorney for the family, have also said they’re concerned about digital evidence, including videos caught on neighbors’ home cameras and internet activity by witnesses to the shooting and the agents involved, being overwritten. They have sent preservation requests to Google, Reddit and the Maine attorney general.
The lawyers asked the state attorney general’s office in emails to preserve governmental records that would reveal how ICE ended up in Biddeford on July 13, any information that the agency had on Guerrero or others in his household, and communications between agents and third-party recordings.
The law firm has also asked members of the public to share any videos from the morning of July 13 that might have captured events before, during and after the shooting.
Murphy, a former federal prosecutor who worked in Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., said he is being careful not to criticize the state, saying the attorney general’s office could be working on doing something “historic.” In an email to Bogue, Murphy said he recognized “that stories and rumors and fears cannot be allowed to interrupt, hinder, or impair your ongoing investigation.”
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Tagged: biddeford maine, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Maine Attorney General's Office
Emily Allen covers courts for the Portland Press Herald. It's her favorite beat so far — before moving to Maine in 2022, she reported on a wide range of topics for public radio in West Virginia and was. More by Emily Allen
