Mario David Coronado Juarez died Sunday in Grand Rapids when his car hit a tree and burst into flames as he tried to avoid an ICE traffic stop. Whitmer ordered a review, and the Grand Rapids police chief asked Michigan State Police to join the investigation.
Police chief Joseph Trigg said local traffic detectives had limited ability to obtain information from federal agencies. Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten said she had asked ICE to explain its agents’ actions and called for a transparent investigation. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security had not commented.
Movimiento Cosecha in Grand Rapids said Coronado Juarez was 36, from San Marcos, Guatemala, and had come to the U.S. alone to work as a construction worker and send money home to his wife and three young children. That Sunday, an ICE agent in Austin shot and wounded Venezuelan delivery driver Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez; in Evanston, a U.S. citizen needed hospital treatment after two ICE agents tried to arrest him in an apparent mistaken-identity case. A July Washington Post analysis found at least 17 motorists had been shot by federal immigration agents during enforcement operations, six fatally.
