The ICE officer Maine shooting that killed a Colombian man in Biddeford this week has drawn scrutiny not only to the incident itself, but to the history of the officer accused of firing the shots — a history described in detail by two former wives and a childhood friend.

Joan Durán Guerrero was shot four times during an attempted traffic stop on Monday. He did not survive.

How the Officer Was Identified

Ashley Brouillette told NPR that the officer involved was her ex-husband, David Brouillette.

She said she learned this on Wednesday, when he called her directly. According to her account, the purpose of the call was to ask her to speak well of him publicly — or, failing that, to say nothing at all to anyone.

She refused. She said she told him plainly that she would not lie on his behalf. When he specifically asked her not to discuss abuse during their marriage, she repeated the same answer.

David Brouillette did not respond to messages from NPR seeking comment.

ICE has declined to confirm or deny that Brouillette was the officer involved. Agency spokesperson Lauren Bis said in an email only that the officer in question has close to a decade of federal law enforcement experience and the required training.

A Friend From High School

Scott Collins, who described himself as David Brouillette’s closest friend during their high school years in Maine, offered a similar characterization.

Collins said Brouillette had a habit of seeking out physical confrontation — that if he saw something online he objected to from someone he knew, he would go find that person and start a fight.

Collins also said Brouillette used anti-Black slurs during high school.

His credibility has been challenged. Collins testified for Ashley Brouillette during her divorce proceedings, and David Brouillette’s attorneys argued that the two had once been friends but that the friendship ended because Collins resented Brouillette’s professional success.

Concerns About Racial Motivation

Ashley Brouillette said she worries that racism may have factored into Durán Guerrero’s death.

She pointed to her ex-husband’s history of racist behavior and noted the nickname he carried in high school — “White Boy David” — as an indicator of how he presented himself even then.

Allegations From the First Marriage

Ashley Brouillette said she has known David Brouillette since the two were preteens. They were married from 2007 to 2009.

She described that marriage as containing repeated violence. One incident she recounted involved an argument that ended with her getting into the shower. She said he entered the bathroom with a gun, pointed it at her, and threatened to kill her there.

No police reports corroborate that account.

She explained why. She said she recanted, as she had on other occasions after reporting his behavior to authorities. Her reasoning was complicated — she described him as functioning as a kind of security blanket despite the harm, because he was all she had known. Withdrawing the complaint meant police wouldn’t arrest him.

She said intimidation kept her quiet for years about what she experienced.

A Voicemail She Kept

One piece of evidence did survive.

After filing a restraining order against her ex-husband in November, Ashley Brouillette preserved a profanity-filled voicemail he left her. NPR obtained the recording.

In it, his speech is slurred. He states that he isn’t threatening to do it himself, but that he believes she and the women in her family should have their throats cut.

A Warning to the National Guard

During the couple’s contentious 2009 divorce, Ashley Brouillette said she contacted her then-husband’s platoon leader in the Maine Army National Guard.

She offered to fax documentation showing he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and borderline schizophrenia. She said the concerns were brushed aside as the complaints of a bitter ex-wife.

NPR’s call and message to the Maine National Guard were not immediately returned.

Allegations Involving His Children

A second ex-wife, Lucinda Brouillette, raised her own concerns in court.

In a 2021 filing, she accused him of growing more aggressive toward their daughter, then 13. She described an incident in which he asked the girl whether she considered him verbally abusive; when she said yes, he grabbed her feet, pulled her out of bed, laughed, and asked whether she now considered him physically abusive.

That filing resulted in his firearms being temporarily removed.

Ashley Brouillette described a separate 2022 incident in which she said child protective services and police were both called to his home after he threw his then-13-year-old daughter through a glass coffee table.

The Hiring Question

When David Brouillette told Ashley late last year that ICE had hired him, she said her first reaction was disbelief — she assumed he was being delusional.

She does not know whether a background check was conducted. Her point is that a thorough one should have surfaced something: a restraining order, a firearms removal order, court filings from a second ex-wife, and calls to police and child protective services.

That gap sits at the center of the story. Whether these records were reviewed and cleared, never surfaced, or were never sought is a question ICE has not addressed.

What She Wants Now

Ashley Brouillette said she is deeply shaken by the week’s events and by the fact that someone has died.

Her stated goal is straightforward. She raised concerns about his mental health years ago and was ignored. Now, she said, she feels compelled to push harder and be heard, in the hope of preventing a similar outcome in the future.

The Unanswered Questions

Several matters remain unresolved.

ICE has not confirmed the officer’s identity. No account of the traffic stop itself — what prompted it, what occurred, why a firearm was discharged four times — has been made public. And no explanation has been offered regarding what vetting standards applied to this hire.

Until those answers arrive, what exists publicly is a killing, a name supplied by a family member, and a documented history that raises questions about how the officer came to hold the authority he exercised on Monday.