As I’m sure you all know, on Monday morning in Biddeford, Maine, an ICE agent shot Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero while he was behind the wheel of his car. Guerrero was 25, Colombian, authorized to work in this country, and living in Biddeford with his partner and young daughter.
He wasn’t even the guy ICE was looking for. Agents were supposedly doing “targeted surveillance” on a removal target’s last known address, and when the car Guerrero was driving left the scene, someone decided that was reason enough to open fire, killing Guerrero. His wife and daughter reportedly watched the aftermath in their pajamas.
And now, right on schedule, DHS won’t tell us who pulled the trigger.
A Portland Press Herald reporter asked DHS spokesperson James Covington for basic information about the agent involved, including training history and current status. His response, in full, via text message, was, “I will never share an officer’s name.” Not “we’re reviewing our policy,” not “pending investigation,” not even a lie dressed up as bureaucratic procedure. Just a flat, personal vow of silence from a guy whose job is presumably to communicate with the public. This isn’t a one-off either. DHS did the same thing after an agent shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston less than a week earlier. Two shootings, two bodies, zero names.
This is nothing more than a secret police tactic. Totalitarian governments that don’t want their enforcers held accountable have relied on anonymity for exactly this reason. You can’t file a complaint against a name you don’t have. Anonymity isn’t a privacy protection here. Democratic governments are supposed to answer for their agents’ use of deadly force.
Compare this to what happens when a municipal cop shoots someone. We get a name, usually within days. The officer typically gets put on administrative leave at minimum and, depending on what the footage shows, sometimes gets arrested and charged. There’s a paper trail, a badge number, and a personnel file somebody can eventually FOIA.
Say what you want about how imperfectly that system works, but it exists, and it exists because we decided a long time ago that people carrying government guns don’t get to stay anonymous when they use them to kill in cold blood. ICE has apparently decided none of that applies to them.
The agent who killed Guerrero almost certainly still has his service weapon and is probably still drawing a paycheck. If the pattern DHS has already established elsewhere holds, he won’t be fired or prosecuted so much as quietly reassigned and shipped off to some other field office in some other state while still carrying a badge and gun, ready to be unleashed anonymously on a city that has no idea what it’s getting. No name, no accountability, no way for the next town to know who just showed up.
(Source)
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