White House says ICE vehicle stops remain necessary enforcement tool
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said ICE vehicle stops will continue as officials address recent deaths.
An off-duty employee of the company that runs an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Colorado used a personal firearm to shoot a protester outside the facility, authorities said.
The shooting unfolded on July 16 near the Aurora ICE Processing Center, also known as the Denver Contract Detention Facility, according to the Aurora Police Department. Police responded just before 7:30 p.m. local time to reports of a shooting and found a woman with a gunshot wound to her lower body, the department said in a statement.
The officers stopped a man in a vehicle nearby, identified as 42-year-old Brandon Booth, an employee of the GEO Group that operates the ICE facility, according to police. He was detained and his vehicle, with a gun inside, were seized, police said.
Police said investigators determined that the woman was part of a protest near the facility.
Booth was waiting in his car along with other employees “due to the protest impeding their ability to gain access to the facility for their work shifts,” Aurora police said. At some point, two women, including the victim, “initiated a verbal confrontation” and took pictures of the cars before walking away, police said.
“At that point, Booth retrieved his personally owned pistol and fired a single shot in their direction, striking one of the women on her lower body. Booth then got into his vehicle and drove out of the area before he was detained,” Aurora Police Department said.
The woman was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, police said. Her identity was not released.
Booth was arrested on probable cause of attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, felony menacing and unlawful carrying of a concealed weapon, police said. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had an attorney who could comment on his behalf.
DHS said no ICE personnel were involved in the incident and referred USA TODAY to GEO Group and the Aurora police.
The GEO Group told USA TODAY in a statement it was aware of the incident and is cooperating with authorities. The employee has been placed on unpaid administrative leave, the company said.
According to its website, the GEO Group contracts with ICE and the U.S. Marshals Service at the Aurora facility. The company didn’t say what Booth’s role is there.
The shooting comes as ICE is under intense scrutiny in the wake of two recent fatal shootings of immigrants in Texas and Maine by officers. Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 25, from Colombia, was shot and killed on July 13 in Biddeford, Maine, when federal authorities said he tried to flee an attempted stop and an officer feared for public safety.
In Houston, 52-year-old Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was fatally shot by an ICE officer. The Department of Homeland Security said that Salgado Araujo “weaponized” his van and tried to run over an officer, but witnesses in the van with him disputed that account.
The shootings have led to calls for ICE to suspend vehicle stops and to roll out body-worn cameras for all officers. DHS has said at least one officer in every arrest team will wear a camera going forward.
