By Steve Gorman and Keith Coffman
DENVER, July 17 (Reuters) – A man employed by a company running a migrant-processing center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been arrested on suspicion of shooting and wounding a woman who was protesting outside the facility in Colorado, police said on Friday.
The shooting occurred on Thursday evening at an ICE Processing Center operated by GEO Group in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, police said in a statement released on social media. It came days after ICE agents fatally shot two motorists during traffic stops on July 7 in Texas and July 13 in Maine.
Brandon Booth, 42, a GEO Group employee, was arrested on Thursday and booked into jail on suspicion of attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, felony menacing and unlawful carrying of a concealed weapon, police said.
The victim was treated at a local hospital for a gunshot wound to her lower body, though her injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, authorities said.
ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and GEO Group did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Police said Thursday’s violence erupted during a demonstration in which protesters had blocked the entrance to the ICE facility.
According to police, Booth fired a single shot with his personally owned handgun in the direction of two female protesters who had “initiated a verbal confrontation” with GEO employees and were taking pictures of their vehicles before they began walking away.
After the gunshot struck one of the women, he got back into his vehicle and fled the area, police said. He was pulled over a short distance from the facility and taken into custody, police said.
“We remain committed to ensuring an ethical, thorough, objective, and comprehensive review of this case,” Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said in a statement. “Violence of any kind will not be tolerated in Aurora. Constitutional rights are a pivotal part of a just society – violence is not.”
ICE operations have come under renewed scrutiny in the aftermath of back-to-back fatal shootings by ICE agents conducting vehicle stops in Houston and Biddeford, Maine. In both cases, DHS has acknowledged that the two men killed, one a Mexican citizen, the other a Colombian national, were not the intended targets of the immigration enforcement operations underway at the time.
Many ICE detention and processing centers, some managed by GEO under contract for the agency, have come under fire from migrant advocates and Democratic politicians who say detainees are subjected to unsafe, unsanitary conditions and a lack of adequate medical care.
GEO is one of the largest private prison operators in the United States.
(Reporting Keith Coffman in Denver; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Sergio Non and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
