ICE officer linked to Maine shooting was deemed not credible in court last year

The U.S. immigration officer allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of an immigrant in Maine told a judge in October that he was struggling to earn money because he had health issues and his driver’s license had been revoked.

Maine District Court Judge Amy Dieterich declared a month later that David Brouillette’s claims were not credible, denying his request to terminate his child support payments to a former wife. Instead, she concluded, Brouillette was “voluntarily underemployed.”

State records show that Brouillette’s license was not revoked at the time of his court testimony, an official who represents Maine’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles told the Washington Post. Brouillette separately indicated in a divorce settlement that he was employed by a local police department in 2019, but that agency said it has no record of him working there.

Brouillette’s credibility could come under scrutiny as authorities investigate the July 13 shooting death of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero during an immigration enforcement action in Biddeford, Maine.

The Department of Homeland Security has not identified Brouillette as the officer who shot Durán. But his former wife Ashley Brouillette and others have said Brouillette told them he was responsible for the shooting and fired his weapon in self-defense. Multiple people have identified Brouillette from footage capturing the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

Ashley Brouillette has said her ex-husband told her that ICE hired him in November, around the time of the judge’s ruling and as the federal agency was rushing to put thousands of new officers on the streets. He said he would start in a couple of months, she said. Former Department of Homeland Security officials have publicly questioned whether those new hires were properly vetted.

One former official told the Post that any record of a judge questioning David Brouillette’s credibility would add to questions about his fitness to serve and could cast a negative light on whatever he tells his superiors about the encounter with Durán.

“Obviously if a judge had found that he had made false statements to the court, that would have a significant detrimental impact on his testimony as to what happened in the shooting,” said John Roth, who served as DHS inspector general from 2014 to 2017 and was a longtime federal prosecutor. “I think it’s a big deal.”

Brouillette did not respond to calls or emails for this story. Blair Jones, his attorney at the child support court hearings in October, also did not respond to calls or messages.

DHS did not respond to questions from the Post about Brouillette’s past statements, when he was hired by ICE, and how he was vetted. An agency spokesperson said ICE officers are targeting criminals and are under constant threat.

“Publicizing their identities puts their lives and the lives of their families at serious risk,” the agency said in a statement.

Durán, a 25-year-old asylum seeker from Colombia who had a work permit issued by the Trump administration, was shot shortly after leaving for work. An ICE spokesperson said officers were surveilling an address associated with an individual who has a final order of removal when they saw Durán leave and attempted to stop his vehicle.

The agency said that the officer fired, “fearing for public safety,” after the driver tried to flee.

A spokesperson for Sen. Angus King (I., Maine) has said that DHS initially told him that Durán was the target of an enforcement operation but later reversed and said he was not. Immigration court records show Durán did not have a final removal order and was scheduled for an initial hearing in May.

Jonathan Ramirez, a friend of Duran’s who answered the door at his apartment the day after the shooting, said that he owns the white Kia that Durán was driving. Ramirez, who is also Colombian, said he does not have a final order of removal and did not think he was the person ICE was seeking. Ramirez said he has a Social Security number and a valid work permit and had paid his taxes.

“The car is in my name,” he said. “I’m someone who follows the rules of this country.”

State investigators have interviewed Durán’s partner, Karolina, who arrived at the scene with their 3-year-old daughter shortly after hearing gunfire, said Ben Gideon, who is representing the Durán family as they weigh legal action against the government.

Gideon said he has not heard from the FBI or the DHS Office of Inspector General, which typically investigate officer-involved shootings. The FBI declined to comment; the OIG said in a statement that its policy is not to confirm or respond to questions on investigations.

State court records show that Brouillette has been embroiled in contentious divorce and child support proceedings over the past two decades and that he and his two former wives have accused one another of abusive and neglectful behavior in civil court.

The court hearing in October was part of an effort by Brouillette to modify his child support and custody arrangement for his daughter with his second wife, Lucinda Brouillette. After two days of testimony in October, the judge denied David Brouillette’s request.

In a Nov. 17 written order, Dieterich said Brouillette had testified that he recently embarked on a new career as a real estate agent but his earning capacity was impacted because “his driver’s license had recently been revoked due to his failure to pay child support.” She said she found his claim to be not credible but did not say why.

Maine’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles told the Post this week that the state has no record of any recent license revocation. Brouillette’s license was suspended in 2008 for a few weeks after he failed to provide proof of insurance following an accident, the agency said.

“We have no record of any suspension or revocation for failure to pay child support,” said Jana Spaulding, spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s office, which oversees the bureau.

In 2019, Brouillette signed a divorce settlement that said he had a job at the police department in Hallowell, a city of 2,500 on Maine’s Kennebec River. Hallowell Police Chief Zachary Kindelan said Brouillette has never worked at the police department.

“I do know that he had applied a couple times, but as far as I know he was never hired,” Kindelan said. “He’s a name I had never even heard before. Maine is obviously a smaller state but … I’ve never even heard of this guy until the news recently.”

Brouillette graduated from a Maine high school in 2007, served in the Maine National Guard until 2010, and then became an active-duty soldier in the Army, according to resumés and job applications he filed with the state for various law enforcement positions. The documents were obtained in response to a public records request.

In an application he filed in 2015, he wrote that he had deployed to Afghanistan and served as a military interrogator. He said embedded with infantry patrols to recruit informants and interrogated Taliban insurgents in jail and “on the battlefield.” The Army sent him to Hawaii in 2014 to manage intelligence analysts, and he retired for unspecified medical reasons the following year.

State records show Brouillette was employed as an officer in several different agencies, often for short periods of time. Those positions included roles at the Maine Department of Corrections, the state Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Durán family’s attorney said Brouillette’s candor and character will be paramount to the investigations into the recent shooting.

No body-camera footage appears to have captured the moment that the shots were fired. And no bystander or surveillance video has emerged thus far showing when Durán was shot. That will make witness testimony — including Brouillette’s own account — key in determining what happened.

“It’s critically important,” Gideon said. “If there’s no direct video evidence produced of the very moment of the shooting, there’s going to be questions about the credibility of the accounts given.”