Martha Karolina Rojas Alvarez addressed reporters in Biddeford Thursday, speaking publicly for the first time since the shooting.
Flanked by her sister-in-law and her lawyer and addressing a crowd of reporters from local and national outlets, she said 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was a loving partner and a devoted father to their three-year-old daughter.
Reporter Ari Snider was there, and spoke with All Things Considered host Nicole Ogrysko about what he saw and heard.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Snider: This was a really raw and emotional press conference. It was the most personal and intimate portrait that we've gotten so far of who Durán Guerrero was, you know, to some of the people who were closest to him. This is how Rojas Alvarez described Durán Guerrero, through an interpreter:
"He was a responsible man, a hard worker, devoted to his family, he always dreamed big, and he had so many dreams left to fulfill. He was always happy, and his joy was contagious. He loved to work, and he couldn't stand sitting still. From the moment we met, we never separated again. We were always one," she said.
This really was the tone of her remarks. You know, she talked about the joy and the security that Durán Guerrero brought to their lives, and then the immeasurable heartbreak of losing him, especially for their three-year-old daughter, who she says was just very close with her dad.
Ogrysko: There was a lawyer for the family there as well. What did he say?
So first of all, the lawyer, Benjamin Gideon, made clear that while there will be a time for lawsuits and for trying to hold the ICE agents who killed Durán Guerrero accountable, he said today was not that day, and that today was about understanding who Durán Guerrero was as a person. But Gideon did stress that Durán Guerrero had never been accused of a crime, that he had legal work authorization, and that he was following a lawful immigration pathway.
"So we as a nation and we as a community have to answer a simple question: Do we accept the idea that innocent, loving partners and loving and devoted fathers of three-year-olds can be collateral damage to this government's policies?" Gideon said.
And Gideon also pointed to the fact that this was the second fatal ICE shooting in a week, after agents also killed a man in Houston, Texas.
And Ari, you've also been speaking with immigrant residents in Biddeford this week. What are you hearing?
Unsurprisingly, this death has taken a huge toll, there's so much fear and sadness and shock. Like most places in Maine, Biddeford isn't that big. There aren't many degrees of separation between people, and so a lot of people knew him. A lot of people say they knew him as a food delivery driver. This also happened after months of increased ICE activity in Maine, including in Biddeford. So this builds on the fear and the anxiety that that people have been experiencing for months. One immigrant business owner I spoke with downtown told me business at his market has been down for months, especially since the ICE surge in January. He mentioned to me that it's even scarier that Durán Guerrero was not the person ICE was looking for, raising the fear that what happened to him could could really happen to anyone.
