ICE Agent Who Killed Colombian Migrant Has History Of Violence, Family Says

Here’s a question: is the federal government just deputizing any-ol’-body to be Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents?

I mean, we’ve already reported on how the government has lowered the standards for ICE recruitment, even going as far as to waive age requirements in order to “take father/son bonding to a whole new level,” but is the government even running background checks at all before unleashing violent, xenophobic thugs with badges and guns onto the public?

This week, we reported on the fatal shooting of a Colombian man in Maine by an ICE agent, which occurred just a few days after the fatal shooting of Mexican immigrant  Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, which has prompted city-wide protests and condemnation from city officials, community members and activist groups alike. In both cases, the government claimed the victim weaponized their vehicles against agents, although in the latest case, the government walked back its narrative, saying the victim, 25-year-old Joan Sebastian Guerrero, “attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”

Well, now, there’s available information on that federal agent, 37-year-old David Brouillette, and, unsurprisingly, he has a history of terrifying and violent behavior, according to his own relatives, specifically, his ex-wife, who provided horrific anecdotes about his history of extreme violence and mental illness.

From the Associated Press:

Brouillette, 37, told his ex-wife Ashley Brouillette late last year that he had been hired by ICE. She said that because of his long history of psychiatric issues, she thought he was having a mental health episode and she didn’t believe him. She didn’t realize he’d been telling the truth until this week, when videos began circulating online of the moments surrounding the shooting.

Ashley Brouillette told the AP that she spoke to her ex-husband in a Facebook audio call, and he acknowledged that he had killed Durán Guerrero. Their 18-year-old daughter, Madison Brouillette, also told the AP that her father called her Wednesday and said that he shot and killed Durán Guerrero.

David and Ashley Brouillette were high school sweethearts who got married in 2007. She said she divorced him in 2009 because he had become physically violent with her, which began after she got pregnant with their daughter.

According to Ashley Brouillette, he once threw boiling water at her while she was holding their child — an incident her mother Avis Collins also recounted.

The abuse continued after she left him, she said.

David Brouillette doesn’t appear to have a criminal record in Maine, as a check with the Maine Department of Public Safety returned no records for him.

But hundreds of family court records obtained from the Augusta District Court clerk’s office detail years of allegations of physical and verbal abuse raised by his second ex-wife on behalf of herself and his daughters.

The ex-wife — whom the AP is not identifying because she fears retaliation — alleged that he had stalked and harassed her and physically and verbally abused his daughter, according to multiple requests for temporary protection orders. Brouillette tackled his teenage daughter and smashed spaghetti in her hair, and during another outburst, he dragged his daughter around the house as she cried, she said.

“Dave needs counseling or something for his PTSD & depression,” she wrote in an application for a temporary protective order on behalf of his teenage daughter which a judge granted in 2021.

In court filings, David Brouillette said that his second ex-wife had slandered him.

His oldest daughter, Madison Brouillette, said she also witnessed her dad’s volatility.

“I watched my dad struggle a lot with a lot of things,” she told the AP. She said she came home from school once and he told her he had been sitting on a tree stump with a gun to his head.

Ashley Brouillette also revealed to AP that last year, her ex-husband left her a three-minute voicemail mocking her for taking out a restraining order against him. She shared the message with AP, which reported that he repeatedly called her “disgusting” and suggested that she and the other women and girls in her “bloodline” should die.

“And all of you should have your f**king throats cut,” the voicemail said. “Yeah, you should. Am I threatening that I’m gonna do that? Nope. Nope. But do I think that you should have your f**king throats cut? Or should have had them cut? Yep.”

Another direct relative of Brouillette, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he was diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder as a child, and described him as “extremely mentally ill,” saying he attempted suicide twice at age 12 and was hospitalized multiple times. The relative said they had been estranged for years out of fear he would harm them.

AP also noted that the anonymous family member claimed Brouillette, a former member of the Maine Army National Guard, was initially rejected by military recruiters because of his mental health diagnoses, but recruiters encouraged him to go off his medications for a year and reapply. The relative said his time overseas only exacerbated his mental health issues.

“Afghanistan destroyed him — trained him to be a killing monster, a machine. They took someone who was extremely mentally ill and turned him into a killing machine,” they said.

So, again, is ICE doing thorough background checks at all? Or are we to believe multiple relatives, including two ex-wives and his own daughter, are all telling the same lies about a perfectly stable man, who should be trusted with the duty of law enforcement?

People are being violently killed because the Trump administration thinks it’s more important to deport immigrants en masse than it is to ensure that the people recruited to do the job aren’t more dangerous to the general public than those migrants supposedly are. Where and when does it end?

SEE ALSO:

Another Fatal ICE Shooting, Another ‘Weaponized Vehicle’

ICE Fatally Shoots Mexican Immigrant They Claim Weaponized His Vehicle

Trump Admin Says ICE Will Scale Back Traffic Stops, Trump Disagrees