ICE Officers at Maine Shooting Scene Were Wearing Body Cameras. They Were Not Turned On.

Federal officers at the scene of a killing by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Maine were wearing body cameras, according to four ICE officials who reviewed images from the scene — but the cameras are on multi-function devices that ICE officers use as radio mics.

After an ICE officer shot and killed a 25-year-old Colombian national this week in Biddeford, Maine, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin reportedly told Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, that officers involved in the shooting were not wearing body cameras.

Yet the ICE officials who spoke with The Intercept, all of whom requested anonymity to protect their livelihoods, identified cameras among the equipment worn by two ICE officers nearby in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

The body-worn devices were not designed solely to capture evidential video, and are used primarily as remote microphones for ICE officers’ radio communications. (ICE did not respond to a request for comment.)

“We are currently only using them as mics because of the AXON contract.”