DHS says officer fired when driver attempted to flee
BIDDEFORD, Maine — In the minutes after a federal immigration officer opened fire in this small coastal city in southern Maine on the day of publication, a now-familiar story began to unfold: another person had been shot and killed inside a moving vehicle during an immigration enforcement operation.
The Department of Homeland Security said the officer fired his weapon when the man they were pursuing attempted to flee the scene, threatening “public safety.”
The Associated Press reported that the narrative has been repeated “again and again” since the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began, with federal officers confronting drivers and then saying they opened fire when the vehicles became a danger. That pattern has persisted despite decades of warnings from policing experts that shooting into moving cars presents a danger of its own and should almost always be avoided.
Last week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican builder, was shot and killed as he drove his crew to a worksite in Houston, where he had lived and worked for decades, according to the AP. In each instance, the news agency reported, officials insisted the federal officers had fired because they feared for their safety.