Judge Had Found ICE Officer Tied to Maine Killing Unreliable

An immigration officer tied to a deadly shooting in Maine was ruled unreliable by a judge months before he reportedly joined ICE, raising questions about how he was screened. In an October child support hearing, Maine District Judge Amy Dieterich found David Brouillette "not credible" after he claimed he couldn't work because of health problems and a revoked driver's license. State motor vehicle officials now say there was no such recent revocation on his record, the Washington Post reports. A 2019 divorce document also listed him as working for a small-city police department that says it never employed him.

Brouillette's truthfulness is now a central issue in the July 13 killing of 25-year-old Colombian asylum seeker Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero during an ICE operation in Biddeford. DHS has not officially named Brouillette as the shooter, but his ex-wife says he told her he fired in self-defense, and multiple people identified him in post-shooting video. With no body-camera or clear surveillance footage of the moment shots were fired, investigators may lean heavily on officers' accounts, per the Post. A former DHS inspector general warned that a prior judicial finding that Brouillette lied would significantly undermine his testimony about what happened.