The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, according to several of his close relatives.
David Brouillette has a history of terrifying and violent behavior, those relatives said. They accuse him of attacking women in his life over the years, and one shared with AP a voicemail allegedly from Brouillette from last winter in he told her that he thought someone should slit her throat.
Brouillette’s ex-wife Ashley Brouillette identified David Brouillette as the officer who killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in the coastal Maine city of Biddeford on Monday. The Department of Homeland Security has not released the name of the officer. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said that Guerrero was not the person that ICE was seeking.
Brouillette’s troubling past further challenges how thoroughly DHS has vetted recruits as it went on a hiring spree to help carry out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched the crackdown after retaking office, including Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who was shot to death while in his car near his home.
DHS has said the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”
Brouillette did not respond to text messages or an email seeking comment. Three relatives who said they had spoken to him since the shooting, including an ex-wife and daughter, said he told them he acted in self-defense.
When reached for comment about Brouillette’s record and his role in Monday’s shooting, ICE spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement that, “We will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers,” and that “the ICE officer in question has nearly a decade of federal law enforcement experience with required training including use-of-force training.”
The White House referred all questions about the shooting and Brouillette to ICE.
A new career in ICE
Brouillette, 37, told Ashley Brouillette late last year that he had been hired by ICE, she said. Because of his long history of psychiatric issues, she said, she thought he was having a mental health episode and she didn’t believe him. She didn’t realize he had been telling the truth until this week, when videos began circulating online of the moments surrounding the shooting.
Ashley Brouillette said she spoke to her ex-husband in a Facebook audio call and that he acknowledged that he had killed Durán Guerrero. Their 18-year-old daughter, Madison Brouillette, said her father called her Wednesday and said that he had 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, her ex-husband 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, Ashley Brouillette 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, the ex-wife 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 said. 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.
“If you don’t really, truly take care of yourself, there’s no way you can protect other people. And with my dad, he never wanted to get help,” she said.
An immediate relative of David Brouillette, who spoke on the condition on anonymity, said Brouillette was diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder as a child — a diagnosis that Ashley Brouillette confirmed. The immediate relative described him as “extremely mentally ill” and said he had attempted suicide twice at age 12 and was hospitalized multiple times.
The relative said they’ve been estranged for years, and that they broke off contact because they feared he would harm them. Brouillette did not respond to their outreach this week, the relative added.
Military deployment and law enforcement aspirations
Brouillette grew up in Gardiner, a city of about 6,000 people roughly 60 miles northeast of Biddeford. He was enchanted by law enforcement and the military, his relatives said.
High school yearbook photos show he was a member of the school’s Naval Junior ROTC, and he wrote that he planned to go to college and become a police officer.
Brouillette 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, which he did, his immediate relative said. He was eventually able to enlist.
According to U.S. military records, Brouillette enlisted as a chemical equipment repairer in the Maine Army National Guard but then changed jobs to be a medical logistics specialist. He was in the Guard from November 2007 to January 2010, according to records provided by the Pentagon.
A 2009 article in the Kennebec Journal listed Brouillette as a private in the Maine Army National Guard’s 152nd Maintenance Company in Augusta.
In January 2010 he joined the regular Army as a human intelligence collector. Brouillette deployed to Afghanistan from May 2012 to February 2013 and left the Army as a sergeant in December 2015.
Life after the Army
After his discharge, Brouillette held a hodgepodge of jobs — some in or adjacent to law enforcement — and was injured in an accident while training to become a firefighter, public records and court documents show.
Brouillette worked for the Maine Correctional Center — a medium-security prison — and for the state’s Health and Human Services Department, spending less than a year at each.
In 2019, court documents show, he was a police officer at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center near the state capital, Augusta. A Veterans Affairs department spokesperson on Thursday referred questions about Brouillette’s employment to DHS.
But by the end of 2021, he wrote in a text message included in court filings, he was broke, going to school full-time and making money delivering food for DoorDash.
Brouillette was enrolled in a firefighting program at Southern Maine Community College and was struck in the head by a steel beam while unloading a trailer at a training facility, according to a lawsuit he filed over his injury.
He sufferd a concussion and post-concussive syndrome, with symptoms including impaired memory, cognitive deficits, headaches, vertigo and light sensitivity, and was unable to complete the program, according to the lawsuit, which was settled out of court.
In recent years, court filings show, he was collecting disability pay through the VA. He also drove a truck, but quit in January 2025, citing health issues.
In March 2025, Brouillette passed an exam to become a real estate sales agent. His license was active until December. In a Facebook post, Realty of Maine announced Brouillette would be working in the firm’s Bangor office.
“David lives in Maine after retiring from the United States Army,” said the post, which has since been deleted. Brouillette is no longer listed as an agent on the firm’s website. Messages seeking comment were left for Realty of Maine.
In March, the Maine agency that handles child support matters filed a lien against him, public records show. The filing suggests that Brouillette may have been in line for a permanent impairment or disability settlement.
‘I don’t think he sees himself as a killer’
In late 2025, around the time Brouillette joined ICE, his ex-wife Ashley Brouillette said he left a three-minute voicemail mocking her for taking out a restraining order against him. According to the message she shared with AP, 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——–g 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——-g throats cuts? Or should have had them cut? Yep.”
She said she cut off contact with him until Wednesday, when his picture began circulating online.
Ashley Brouillette said she reached out to Brouillette’s current wife on Facebook and that they spoke on the phone for several minutes. Her ex-husband also spoke with Ashley Brouillette, according to cellphone screenshots of the phone exchange she shared with the AP. He acknowledged he had fatally shot Durán Guerrero.
“He was asking if I could tell them that he was a good person and not to talk about the abuse and stuff that I had endured while with him, and he said that the most important thing is his character right now,” she said.
She said he told her he is now hiding in protective custody.
“I asked him why he did it,” she said. “He said it was a justified shooting. The guy was trying to run him over with a car.”
His daughter also said he told her the shooting was justified.
“I don’t think he sees himself as a killer,” Madison Brouillette said. “I think he thinks that he genuinely did the right thing. All he said was that he did what he had to do. He said that he had to protect himself.”
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