ICE Killing in Maine Shows Why Vets Need Vetting

The killing of Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero exposes the dangers of rushed hiring, inadequate screening, militarized policing, and unchecked federal force.

By Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early, LA Progressive

The media spent a lot of time this summer examining whether a certain Maine oysterman and Marine veteran seeking federal employment should have been better vetted by those around him.

ICE police agent - Officer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Close-up of POLICE ICE marking on the back of a stab proof vest uniform worn by a trio of police officers at the scene of an immigrant incident. The ICE federal law enforcement agency is under the supervision of the United States Department of Homeland Security.

Even after Graham Platner abandoned his U.S. Senate bid, his friends and foes argue about whether service-related conditions—which earned him a 100 percent disability rating from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)—contributed to past substance abuse, mental health problems, and aggression against intimate partners.

Now, in the same state, the spotlight has shifted to David Brouillette, a troubled Afghan war vet who might also have been better off harvesting oysters. Brouillette spent eight years in the U.S. Army and state National Guard before getting hired for not one, but two federal jobs. Thanks to an ill-advised push to recruit more ex-military personnel for law enforcement roles, without proper background checks, he got to carry a gun again.

Last month, after serving as a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) police officer, a prison guard, and then joining the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Brouillette fatally shot Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, a young Colombian immigrant, during a traffic stop in Biddeford, Maine.

The Vet-to-Cop Pipeline

Thanks to Congress allocating $30 billion to create 10,000 more positions for that agency between 2025 and 2030—and job cuts at other federal departments, which often employ veterans—more ex-soldiers are getting hired into a para-military workforce, with insufficient screening, minimal training, and leaders who valorize brutality. Those who have already been cops go to the head of the line for signing bonuses as high as $50,000.

Brouillette is among the 200,000 veterans disproportionately represented in the nation’s nearly one million law enforcement jobs, ranging from local police departments to the fast-growing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

For their own good and the welfare of all Americans, some of these vets should not trade one uniform for another. That’s because past military service not only produces Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); it can also leave former service members with traumatic brain injuries that trigger aggressive and impulsive behavior.

In the case of Maine mass shooter Robert Card, a longtime Army Reserve grenade range instructor who never served in combat, that condition led to the slaughter of 18 neighbors at a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, almost three years ago. Far more common is the rocky personal transition to civilian life typified by twice-divorced Brouillette, whose father and brother also served in the military.