A retired federal agent rehired by ICE as part of Kristi Noem’s mass recruitment push accidentally discharged his gun in a hotel room, firing one round through the wall that came to rest in the headboard of the bed in the room next door.
Bradley Shaver, 53, an Ohio-based Border Patrol veteran who retired in 2023, was one of around 3,000 federal agents deployed to Minnesota under Operation Metro Surge, and had been staying at the Hampton Inn in Eagan.
According to a police report reviewed by Sahan Journal, on the evening of Dec. 18, Shaver had been holding his Glock 19 aimed toward his own body as he worked to pry off its backstrap—a grip piece on the rear of the handle—when the weapon fired.
The bullet tore through his sweatshirt pocket, punched through the wall, and lodged in the headboard of the room next door, at roughly stomach height.
Aaron Wukawitz, 32, of Brainerd, Minnesota, had just arrived at the hotel and was making his way down the hallway toward his room when he heard a gunshot. He entered to find Shaver in full panic next door, then heard him phone a colleague: “It just went off,” Shaver said, according to Wukawitz.
“That could have literally killed me,” Wukawitz told Sahan Journal. Wukawitz, who holds a concealed carry permit and regularly carries a handgun, could not fathom how the discharge had occurred.
“There’s no way you could do this unless your finger was on the trigger,” he said. “There’s no way.”
Eagan Police were called shortly before 6:30 p.m, and collected Shaver’s firearm and ammunition, but made no arrest and pursued no criminal charges. He was described as visibly shaken and apologetic, telling officers that nothing like this had ever occurred in his decades in law enforcement.
Megan Newcomb, an organizer with Sunrise Movement—a youth-led climate group that has staged overnight noise protests outside hotels where federal agents have been staying—said the incident pointed to a broader danger. “The scary thing about this gun story is not only are hotel workers at risk, but people just coming to Minnesota are at risk,” she told Sahan Journal.
The incident also raises more questions about DHS’s frantic efforts to swell ICE’s ranks, which the Daily Beast has frequently reported on, including how insiders described the crash recruitment program as a “s–tshow,” with rehired veterans arriving at offices before computer access, guns, or badges were ready for them.
It has also been reported that the drive has attracted deeply substandard candidates—including one 469-pound applicant whose physician had certified him medically unable to exercise.
Shaver was also among several Ohio-based Border Patrol agents named in a 2012 racial profiling lawsuit, but a federal judge ruled in 2016 that their conduct was not unconstitutional.
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS for comment.
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