When David Brouillette told one of his former wives that he shot a man while working as an immigration officer in Maine, she was caught off guard, but not surprised.

“I was shocked, but I wasn’t shocked,” Ashley Brouillette told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday. Another former wife, Lucinda Brouillette, was more explicit. When asked whether she believed her ex-husband was capable of “this level of extreme violence,” her answer was “unequivocally yes” in a message shared with reporters on Saturday.

Both women had previously sought orders of protection from Brouillette, and alleged threatening or abusive behavior, according to court documents obtained by news outlets. Lucinda Brouillette said she had warned authorities for years about his aggression. Ashley Brouillette described severe physical and emotional abuse during their marriage. David Brouillette has not responded publicly to the abuse allegations.

Recent research by the American Psychological Association found that a history of domestic violence among law enforcement recruits is correlated with higher rates of misconduct and use-of-force complaints. Those warnings and court filings from Brouillette’s former wives did not prevent him from repeatedly finding work in the field, including short stints as a correctional officer at a Maine prison and as a Veterans Affairs police officer, according to The Associated Press, before eventually landing at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. After about eight months as an agent there, he encountered Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero.

Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old from Colombia with legal authorization to work in the U.S., wasn’t the man agents were looking for in Biddeford, Maine, on the morning of July 13. The agents still attempted to stop his white Kia sedan. Many details about the shooting remain unclear, but according to the Department of Homeland Security, an agent, now known to be Brouillette, opened fire when the vehicle “attempted to flee the scene.”

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Earlier this year, The Associated Press also found that officers were being hired before passing background checks. It’s nearly impossible to probe ICE hires systematically, since unlike most state and local law enforcement agencies, DHS shields officer identities to protect them from harassment. But after looking into the backgrounds of 40 officers they could identify, the AP found three had “faced lawsuits that alleged misconduct in prior law enforcement jobs.”

The risks of hiring officers with records of misconduct at prior agencies are well-known in the policing field, and predate ICE’s hiring binge. For years, researchers have studied what happens when officers leave one law enforcement agency after misconduct, disciplinary problems, or other warning signs, only to find another department willing to hire them. They are sometimes referred to as “wandering officers.”