A 26-year-old Colombian national who was not the target of an ICE operation is dead after fleeing from federal agents in Biddeford, Maine, and the mainstream press has already decided who the villain is — before any investigation is complete.

Joan Sebastian Guerrero was fatally shot by an ICE Enforcement Removal Operations officer Monday morning during a surveillance operation targeting someone else with a final order of removal. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed to Senator Angus King that Guerrero was not the intended target. That fact — a dead man who wasn't even who agents came for — is the core of this story. Everything else is spin.

Here's what the record shows: ICE agents were stationed at a Biddeford address. Guerrero left in a vehicle. Agents attempted a stop. He fled. An officer discharged his weapon, striking Guerrero. He died at the scene. The Maine Attorney General's Office says preliminary information indicates Guerrero was fleeing "in the direction of" an officer when shot. DHS initially told King the driver had "weaponized" his vehicle; its public statement merely said the officer fired "fearing for public safety." No body cameras were rolling. The officer is on administrative leave.

A bystander, Daniel Boucher, told the Portland Press Herald he saw an SUV trying to ram a white car, and later saw Guerrero pulled from the driver's seat, bleeding from the head, saying "I tried to stop." Video obtained by the Press Herald shows a white vehicle driving in circles with officers alongside — context unclear.

Now watch the framing. The Daily Beast led with Guerrero being "killed in front of his 3-year-old daughter" wearing "Bluey pajamas," his wife emitting "an agonizing howl." The outlet rummaged through his social media to paint a portrait of a "devoted father." HuffPost dismissed the weaponized-vehicle claim outright, noting DHS has used it before and been contradicted by video — a fair point about past cases, but not evidence about this one. Neither outlet could tell you whether Guerrero had lawful status; both repeated that advocacy groups said he was "authorized to work" and held a Social Security number, as though work authorization settles the question of presence. It doesn't. Asylum applicants get work permits. TPS holders get work permits. The press doesn't ask; it implies.

What the outlets bury: Guerrero ran. Whether that justifies deadly force is the legitimate question at the heart of this incident, and it deserves a real investigation — not a media sympathy campaign designed to foreclose it. This is the second fatal ICE shooting in a week where the person killed was not the target of the operation. In Texas, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was shot during a traffic stop; he also wasn't the subject of the warrant. Two wrong targets, two dead men, in seven days. That pattern demands scrutiny — the kind scrutiny that advocacy journalism dressed up as news is not equipped to provide.

Governor Janet Mills called the shooting "reckless and haphazard." Republican Senator Susan Collins wants a "full and impartial investigation." For once, the bipartisan reflex isn't the sellout — it's the bare minimum. The question isn't whether Guerrero was a good father. It's whether federal agents are executing operations that kill the wrong people, and whether anyone in Washington will own it when they do.