The ICE agent who killed Johan Guerrero called his ex-wife Wednesday with a request: lie for me. She gave his name to the press instead.
His name is David Brouillette, 37, of Manchester, Maine. Four days after the shooting, the federal government still refuses to identify him, a courtesy no local officer in Maine gets. So Ashley Brouillette did the government's job for it.
She told the Portland Press Herald her ex-husband called her Wednesday, admitted the shooting, insisted it was justified, and struck her as "unusually calm." Then came the asks. Cover for his character. Don't talk about the abuse in their marriage.
Her answer, on the record: "I told him that I was not going to lie for him."
Then she talked. She described abuse during and after their marriage, including, she told reporters, an incident where he threw boiling water at her while she was holding their child. Her mother confirmed the account.
A second ex-wife, unnamed because she fears retaliation, filed multiple requests for protection orders alleging he stalked and harassed her and physically and verbally abused his daughter. People close to him told NPR he was prone to violence and held racist beliefs.
And here is the part that moves this from one man's record to a national scandal: the system was warned. Ashley says she reported her concerns about his stability to his military superiors years ago. Relatives told the Associated Press he "never should have been given access to a badge and gun."
Look at what the file already showed. Less than a year as a state corrections officer. Removed from a volunteer fire department, twice, for shouting and refusing a supervisor's orders.
And this year, according to The Atlantic and his own family, he became a new ICE recruit, hired amid Trump's frantic quota-driven expansion. ICE's defense: the officer has "nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience."
A decade of experience. A volunteer fire department couldn't keep him.
ICE also says naming its officers endangers them, because they're out arresting terrorists and murderers. Johan Guerrero was a 25-year-old delivery driver whom the Homeland Security secretary himself admitted was not the man they were looking for. ICE now claims otherwise. The government's story is still changing.
Guerrero was shot four times behind the wheel outside his family's apartment. On Thursday his wife, Martha Karolina Rojas Alvarez, spoke publicly for the first time, through a translator and through tears: "He did everything to see me happy." Their little girl is named Dulce. He fulfilled her every wish, her mother said.
No charges have been filed. The investigations are open. Senator Ed Markey showed up unannounced at the Scarborough ICE office Friday demanding answers.
And remember how all of it surfaced. The government hid his name. He called the one person who knew his history and asked for her silence.
She said no.
His name is David Brouillette, 37, of Manchester, Maine. Four days after the shooting, the federal government still refuses to identify him, a courtesy no local officer in Maine gets. So Ashley Brouillette did the government's job for it.
She told the Portland Press Herald her ex-husband called her Wednesday, admitted the shooting, insisted it was justified, and struck her as "unusually calm." Then came the asks. Cover for his character. Don't talk about the abuse in their marriage.
Her answer, on the record: "I told him that I was not going to lie for him."
Then she talked. She described abuse during and after their marriage, including, she told reporters, an incident where he threw boiling water at her while she was holding their child. Her mother confirmed the account.
A second ex-wife, unnamed because she fears retaliation, filed multiple requests for protection orders alleging he stalked and harassed her and physically and verbally abused his daughter. People close to him told NPR he was prone to violence and held racist beliefs.
And here is the part that moves this from one man's record to a national scandal: the system was warned. Ashley says she reported her concerns about his stability to his military superiors years ago. Relatives told the Associated Press he "never should have been given access to a badge and gun."
Look at what the file already showed. Less than a year as a state corrections officer. Removed from a volunteer fire department, twice, for shouting and refusing a supervisor's orders.
And this year, according to The Atlantic and his own family, he became a new ICE recruit, hired amid Trump's frantic quota-driven expansion. ICE's defense: the officer has "nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience."
A decade of experience. A volunteer fire department couldn't keep him.
ICE also says naming its officers endangers them, because they're out arresting terrorists and murderers. Johan Guerrero was a 25-year-old delivery driver whom the Homeland Security secretary himself admitted was not the man they were looking for. ICE now claims otherwise. The government's story is still changing.
Guerrero was shot four times behind the wheel outside his family's apartment. On Thursday his wife, Martha Karolina Rojas Alvarez, spoke publicly for the first time, through a translator and through tears: "He did everything to see me happy." Their little girl is named Dulce. He fulfilled her every wish, her mother said.
No charges have been filed. The investigations are open. Senator Ed Markey showed up unannounced at the Scarborough ICE office Friday demanding answers.
And remember how all of it surfaced. The government hid his name. He called the one person who knew his history and asked for her silence.
She said no.
