A US immigration officer on Monday fatally shot a man identified by rights groups as a 26-year-old Colombian, the second such killing by federal agents in less than a week.
The shooting happened in Biddeford, a town of 22,000 people in the northern state of Maine, and is likely to fuel criticism of President Donald Trump’s deportation drive and its handling by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Initially, Senator Angus King of Maine told reporters he understood, based on a conversation with Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, that the victim was the subject of an ICE arrest warrant over his immigration status.
But later on Monday, a spokesperson for King said the senator was told in a second conversation with Mullin that the victim was not the intended target of the warrant.
“The person that was killed was not the person they were seeking,” King told CNN.
King demanded a “full, transparent and open investigation,” but said the agents involved were apparently not wearing body cameras.
ICE said the agent would be placed on leave in line with protocol after police-involved shootings. The FBI earlier said it was also investigating.
Last week, a Mexican man was shot dead by an ICE agent during an attempted vehicle stop in Texas.
‘I tried to stop’
Daniel Boucher, 71, was nearby when the incident occurred and told AFP he heard a “lot of pop, pop, pops” before seeing ICE agents pull a person from a white car with a bloodied head and face.
“At that point I clearly heard the victim say ‘I tried to stop,’ something to that effect,” he said.
“Then he was on the ground. I could only see the legs and the stomach, and at one point, I could see that his stomach stopped going, and I knew that he had expired.”
Boucher said that when he confronted one of the agents at the scene, the man had tried to run him over.
