This story appears as part of a collaboration between The Maine Monitor and Maine Focus, the investigative team of the Bangor Daily News, a partnership to strengthen investigative journalism in Maine. You can show your support for this effort with a donation to The Monitor. Read more about the partnership.
One morning in late May, Carlos, a construction worker from Ecuador, forgot a tool at home and drove back to retrieve it. He did not know that four immigration agents were stationed on his block, waiting for someone to leave his apartment.
He got as far as the next intersection before two vehicles abruptly intercepted his brown pickup truck. A partially masked law enforcement officer came to his window and told him to get out of the car, Carlos said in an interview.
The officer did not ask for his name or any identifying information. Panicked, Carlos said he followed the order.
"They were just saying they were arresting everybody and they were going to take me out of the car for better or for worse," said Carlos, whose lawyer arranged the interview on conditions that the Bangor Daily News identify him only by his first name and not disclose the town where his arrest occurred.
One of the officers who stopped him was David Brouillette, a recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruit identified as the agent who fatally shot 25-year-old Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero during a similar encounter earlier this month in Biddeford. Like Carlos, Duran Guerrero was not the target of the ICE warrant that agents were there to serve.
The BDN reviewed records from four of Brouillette's past arrests to better understand his conduct during his first months on the job. The records show he had repeatedly taken part in aggressive stops of immigrants who were not their original targets, were accused of no crime and were following a federal process to obtain legal status. They illustrate broader concerns about the agency's credibility and posture under President Donald Trump.
In at least two of the four cases involving Brouilette, boilerplate language in arrest reports did not match the detainee's own account of events. All four arrests involved traffic stops of immigrants who, like Duran Guerrero, lacked criminal histories and were following a federal process for obtaining legal immigration status. Three of them entered the country legally on a visa before applying for asylum, reflecting a pattern that immigration advocates have noticed among a recent surge in arrests. Many are often released after receiving a bond hearing in immigration court.
"It's this kind of chaotic, expensive, dangerous waste of time for everyone involved," said Max Brooks, an immigration lawyer with the ACLU of Maine, "and it just seems like it's so they can boost their numbers."
ICE did not respond to questions. The agency is investigating Duran Guerrero's shooting, which Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, said would include a review of the officer's vetting. A phone number listed for Brouillette had been disconnected, and he could not be reached for comment. (Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey's office is also investigating the shooting.)
Duran Guerrero's death marked the second time an ICE agent shot someone in a vehicle in less than a week after a Texas incident. Witnesses said agents surrounded his white sedan with guns drawn in a residential Biddeford neighborhood and fired when the vehicle appeared to move. Video that circulated online showed agents pulling Duran Guerrero's body from the driver's seat but did not capture the shooting. The agents were not wearing body cameras.
ICE has not formally identified Brouillette as the shooter, but people who knew him recognized him from the footage. The Portland Press Herald first confirmed his identity after an ex-wife, who has accused him of abuse, told the paper he confessed to the shooting and asked her to vouch for his character.
Duran Guerrero's killing renewed scrutiny of ICE's tactics. Additional reporting since the shooting has detailed Brouillette's alleged history of violence, questions about his truthfulness and red flags that a local police department cited in declining to hire him before ICE did. Those findings have prompted questions about how the agency vets new officers.
Carlos said the possibility of violence was on his mind throughout his May stop. He believed complying with officers' orders would make the encounter less likely to turn physical, he said.
"I thought, well, if I just did what they said, they'd be less likely to beat me," Carlos said.
Carlos' account of his arrest does not match what Brouillette wrote in his report, which describes a tamer sequence of events in a different order. The report says agents watched Carlos leave the target's apartment and get into a vehicle registered to the target, then initiated a stop and discovered their target was not inside. It does not include any mention of two vehicles intercepting the truck from the front and back, as Carlos described. Carlos had not read the report before agreeing to the BDN interview, his lawyer said.
The report also says officers made a warrantless arrest only after identifying Carlos through his work permit and after he admitted to entering the country illegally and lacking legal status. Carlos said officers instead handcuffed him and placed him in a cruiser before attempting to identify him at all.
Multiple immigration lawyers told the BDN they do not consider ICE and Border Patrol arrest reports reliable. The Washington Post reported that Brouillette was found not credible in court last year after claiming he had worked for a local police department and had his license revoked, statements that state and local officials disputed.
In a separate case Brouillette worked, Brouillette put in his report that a Congolese man detained in Westbrook on June 22 told officers he was in good health and took no prescription medication. The next day, the man's lawyer filed a court petition stating he suffered from a serious medical condition and had been denied his daily medication since his arrest, attaching a photo of his prescriptions to the filing.
Carlos crossed the southern border with his wife and then-1-year-old son four years ago, he said, after a gang in Ecuador killed his brother and threatened his life. His attorney, Shaan Chatterjee, said Carlos obtained a work permit after applying for asylum last year. He has worked long hours doing roofing, siding and painting.
After his arrest, Carlos was taken to an ICE office in Scarborough, where an officer handed him documents and told him to sign. He signed one before another detainee stopped him — Carlos said he later learned the document was an agreement to voluntary deportation. He spent about three weeks in detention in Plymouth, Massachusetts, before an immigration judge released him on a $5,000 bond.
Carlos learned about Duran Guerrero's killing through the Latino community on Facebook, but days would pass before he realized the agent who opened fire had been present at his own arrest. He did not immediately recognize Brouillette until he studied a photograph.
"When I found out, I did think of my own experience," he said. "That is why I think it is better to not resist if they stop you, because they might kill you."