The phone call came after a 26-year-old man had been shot dead, a Maine community had erupted in protest and federal immigration officials were struggling to defend what happened.

On the other end of the line, according to Ashley Brouillette, was her former husband—the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent involved in the fatal shooting of Colombian national Joan Sebastian Guerrero.

Ashley said he wanted her help.

Not to explain what happened. Not to express remorse. But, in her account, to protect his reputation.

“He was asking me to lie for him and to cover for his character,” she told the Portland Press Herald.

Her response was blunt.

“I told him that I was not going to lie for him.”

With those words, a deeply personal conversation reportedly became a new and potentially explosive chapter in the national controversy surrounding Guerrero’s death.

Agent David Brouillette allegedly contacted his ex-wife after the shooting and defended his actions by claiming Guerrero had attempted to strike him with a vehicle. The Press Herald reported that it reviewed a screenshot showing incoming calls to Ashley from the Facebook account of Brouillette’s current wife.

According to Ashley, Brouillette insisted the shooting was justified.

“He tried to say that it was a justified shooting because the guy tried to hit him with his car,” she said.

But she described something else that disturbed her: his emotional state.

“In his head it’s justified,” she said. “He’s unusually calm about it.”

Her account has intensified scrutiny of a shooting already surrounded by conflicting narratives.

ICE initially said its officers faced danger from Guerrero’s vehicle, using that account to justify the use of lethal force. But video footage cited in subsequent reporting appeared to challenge key parts of that description.

The footage reportedly showed officers walking beside Guerrero’s slowly moving car rather than diving away from a vehicle accelerating directly at them. Critics argued that the video did not show Guerrero deliberately attempting to run the agents over.

That discrepancy has fueled outrage in Biddeford, Maine, and beyond.

Demonstrators gathered after the shooting, demanding accountability and questioning whether ICE agents had been properly trained to conduct traffic stops that could quickly become dangerous.

Guerrero’s death was not treated by protesters as an isolated tragedy.

It became a symbol of a wider immigration-enforcement system they believe has grown more aggressive, more militarized and less accountable under President Donald Trump.

Ashley’s claims now add another layer to that debate.

She told the newspaper that she chose to speak publicly because she had previously raised concerns about Brouillette’s behavior and mental health with his military superiors. She also alleged that he had been abusive during their relationship.

Those claims have not been independently adjudicated in connection with the shooting, and Brouillette has not been convicted of wrongdoing. But Ashley’s decision to come forward raises serious questions about whether warning signs were reported and, if so, whether they were ever investigated.

For federal agencies entrusted with weapons and the authority to use force, such questions can be critical.

Law-enforcement officers routinely operate in stressful and unpredictable circumstances. Agencies are expected to assess whether employees are capable of exercising restraint, following commands and making sound judgments in moments when lives may depend on a split-second decision.

If credible concerns about an officer’s behavior were previously raised, investigators may now face pressure to determine who received those warnings and what action was taken.

Ashley’s account also challenges the image Brouillette allegedly wanted her to present.

Rather than serve as a character witness, she became one of his most damaging public critics.

Her refusal carried particular weight because it came from someone who knew him privately, long before his name appeared in headlines.

She did not describe a panicked man shattered by what had happened.

She described someone calm, convinced and seeking support for his version of events.

Meanwhile, the government’s response to Guerrero’s death descended into confusion.

Following the shooting, ICE temporarily paused most traffic stops amid concerns that aggressive roadside enforcement had become too dangerous.

The restriction lasted less than a day.

After conservative commentators criticized the pause, Trump publicly ordered traffic stops to resume, arguing that abandoning them would weaken immigration enforcement and benefit criminals.

The rapid reversal left officials scrambling and raised questions about whether policy was being shaped by safety assessments or television pressure.

For Guerrero’s family and supporters, that political spectacle risked obscuring the central fact of the case: a young man was dead.

Reports said officers removed Guerrero from the vehicle after the shooting and placed him in handcuffs. The detail became a source of particular anger among protesters, who saw it as evidence of an enforcement culture prioritizing control even after the threat had ended.

The exact circumstances of the shooting remain subject to official investigation.

Authorities will need to examine body-camera footage, vehicle movement, officer positioning, commands given at the scene and whether Brouillette reasonably believed that he or another agent faced an immediate threat.

The legal standard will not be determined by his ex-wife’s opinion, public anger or political pressure.

But Ashley’s testimony may become important evidence about what the agent said privately after the incident.

Did he accurately describe the shooting?

Was he asking for a truthful account of his character—or pressuring someone to support a version she did not believe?

And why did a woman who once knew him intimately decide that speaking to reporters was more important than defending him?

Ashley has already given her answer.

She said she would not lie.

Now investigators, federal officials and the public must determine who else has been telling the truth.