A federal immigration agent shot and killed an individual in a vehicle on Monday in the coastal city of Biddeford, Maine, according to the state attorney general’s office. Nearly eight hours later, details remained scant, and federal authorities had not provided any information about the fatal encounter.
The state’s governor, the city’s mayor and other officials said they were seeking details, and demanded a full investigation of the killing. It was the second fatal shooting in a week involving an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent firing into a vehicle.
Social media video shot early Monday showed agents surrounding a still body at an intersection in a residential neighborhood of Biddeford, next to a car with bullet holes in the windshield, as local police officers arrived at the scene.
Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, said in a phone interview on Monday that “we have gotten reports that ICE officers shot through a car window, and the individual in the car was killed.”
Liam LaFountain, the mayor of Biddeford, called for “a full, thorough and transparent investigation into this fatal incident,” in a statement, adding, “We will get answers, but we do not have them yet.”
Maine’s attorney general, Aaron M. Frey, said in a statement on Monday afternoon that according to initial reports, a deportation officer was “conducting an enforcement operation related to a final order of removal when the subject attempted to flee in a vehicle in the direction of the officer and was fatally shot.”
Two advocacy groups, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! Maine, said in a joint statement that a 26-year-old Colombian man had died in the encounter. Project Relief, another immigrant advocacy organization, said the man had a partner and a young child.
The source of the advocates’ information was unclear, and could not be immediately confirmed with the authorities.
The shooting came amid an aggressive ramp-up of immigration arrests across the country in recent weeks. Daily arrests of immigrants in the United States doubled in the last week of June and have continued to climb.
Last week, federal immigration agents killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican construction worker and father of three who had lived in the country for more than 30 years without legal status. Mr. Salgado Araujo was not the initial target of the officers who pursued his vehicle in Houston, and as in Maine, it appeared that the agents were not using body cameras.
In Maine, a statewide enforcement surge began in January. Residents of Biddeford, a city of roughly 22,000 about 20 miles south of Portland, said that ICE agents had been there frequently in recent months.
People who live near the intersection where the shooting took place on Monday said that it happened at about 7:15 a.m. In interviews, several reported hearing gunfire, then seeing a body on the ground next to a car.
Mia Covino, 26, who lives nearby, said that she heard four or five gunshots and dropped to the floor inside her home. She then peeked from her window, she said, and saw two law enforcement agents in plain clothes and green vests in the street, as well as a white car slowly spinning in circles in the intersection.
One of the agents was holding onto one of the car’s door handles, Ms. Covino said, “yelling, ‘He tried to run me over.’” The other agent was telling his colleague “to stop, to relax, to calm down,” she added.
Another vehicle, which appeared to belong to the federal agents, bumped into the circling car and stopped it, Ms. Covino said, adding that agents then pulled a man from the drivers’ seat and onto the ground. He was covered in blood, she said.
Mary Hayes, who also lives nearby, said she looked outside at about 7:30 a.m., after seeing social media posts about the shooting. She saw a white car with the drivers’ side window blown out, she said, and bullet holes in the windshield.
There was also a woman on her knees, screaming, Ms. Hayes said, alongside a young girl with a pink backpack who was being comforted by another child.
“I heard agony,” Ms. Hayes said. “I heard a howl that came from your soul, that your whole life had just changed and it was never going to be the same.”
At a news conference in Portland on Monday, Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent, said that he had spoken with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. “The person who was shot was the target of the arrest warrant, based upon his immigration status,” Mr. King said.
“Different facts may come out, but apparently, there are no cameras involved,” he added. “Body cameras were not on the agents, and so we have no video evidence of what occurred in this case.”
As of 3 p.m., Homeland Security officials had not provided any information despite repeated requests for comment.
Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, said in a statement that the Maine State Police and other agencies were consulting with federal officials “to determine the facts of what occurred this morning.” Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican, called for “a full and impartial investigation.”
The state, which has an aging population, has in recent decades welcomed immigrants who have helped breathe new life into the economy, and now represent about five percent of the population.
In the early 2000s, Maine received a large influx of refugees from Somalia, and it has since resettled people fleeing conflict in other African countries and the Middle East.
It has also attracted a growing number of immigrants from Latin America, many of whom live in Biddeford, a working-class town on the coast.
Talla Fall, who is originally from Senegal, said he lives near where the shooting took place and works at a McDonalds nearby. ICE agents have been in the neighborhood “every day, every week,” he said.
Hundreds of immigrants were detained during the January enforcement surge, which ICE called “Operation Catch of the Day,” a reference to the state’s commercial seafood and lobster industry.
“Everyone thought the surge was over, but ICE has been present — and in larger numbers,” said Anna Welch, founding director of the refugee and human rights clinic at the University of Maine School of Law.
The incident on Monday, she said, “raises serious concerns about what kinds of protocol and training agents are getting to ensure that violence doesn’t escalate to the point of someone being shot in the head.”
Christina Morales and Allison McCann contributed reporting.
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