For the second time in a week, a person has been shot during an operation by the controversial US immigration agency ICE.
The incident took place on Monday in the city of Biddeford in the state of Maine in the northeast of the country. According to aid organizations, the victim is a 26-year-old Colombian.
According to information from the Attorney General of Maine, a deportation order should be enforced during the deployment. When the suspect tried to flee in a car in the direction of an ICE officer, he opened fire. The ICE official has been suspended. The US Federal Police FBI launched an investigation.
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A spokesman for the immigration authority confirmed the fatal shots. The officer fired “out of concern for public safety” at the fleeing man’s car. “The driver of the vehicle was hit, and rescuers were immediately alerted. He succumbed to his injuries,” said the ICE spokesman.
As one of the first, the speaker of the House of Representatives of Maine, Ryan Fecteau, confirmed the use of firearms with one person dead. “ICE was involved,” he wrote on Facebook. Eyewitness Lucas Scott told local media that he heard at least four shots after several ICE officers surrounded a white car in Biddeford. In online networks, users spread video recordings that are supposed to show the incident.
Four deaths since the beginning of the year
Two aid organizations that advocate for the rights of immigrants in Maine identified the victim as the 26-year-old Colombian, without naming him. He had a residence permit in the United States, they explained. His death should not become a “footnote” in the statistics, demanded the chairman of the organization Presente Maine, Crystal Cron.
It is already the fourth death in the course of an operation by the federal authorities since the beginning of the year. Last Tuesday, an ICE employee in Houston, Texas, shot a Mexican during a vehicle inspection, who then succumbed to his injuries in the hospital.
In January, US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot dead in Minneapolis during protests against deportation raids. An ICE employee is also held responsible for the death of the mother of three Good, for that of the nurse Pretti a member of the Border Guard.
Source: Tageblatt
