The Rev. Tara Humphries looks on as the Rev. Devin Green hugs a visitor to the memorial site for Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford on Saturday. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)

BIDDEFORD — A woman slid a fresh bouquet into the green hedge laden with dried and drooping flowers and handwritten notes. 

Emma Wilkinson sobbed as she knelt on the chalk-covered sidewalk to take a photo of the candles left at the memorial on the corner of Pool and Hill streets in Biddeford, where the blood of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero still stained the pavement on Friday nearly two weeks after he was shot and killed there by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

She sniffled into the palm of her hand.

The Rev. Devin Green paused her conversation with a couple nearby to approach Wilkinson. 

“Can I give you a hug?” Green asked. Wilkinson nodded through tears. 

They embraced for a few seconds until Wilkinson’s breaths became shallower and her hands stopped shaking. 

Flowers and notes on Saturday at the memorial where Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was shot and killed on July 13 by a federal immigration at the corner of Hill and Pool streets in Biddeford. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)

Wilkinson, a University of New England student, has returned to the memorial regularly, capturing the flowers as they fade into brown. It’s evidence of a life cycle, or time passing. “I can’t get over it,” she said, wiping away tears. “This is home.” 

Green offered her another hug after explaining that she’s an interfaith minister. Wilkinson accepted. 

“I know I’m not the only one who needs it,” Wilkinson said. “I’m glad you’re here.” 

“I’m glad you’re paying your respects and feeling all of the feelings,” Green said. 

Green is one of the half dozen religious leaders recruited by the Rev. Lori Whittemore, a minister with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Saco and Biddeford, to be present at the memorial site where Guerrero died, providing street ministry in the form of hugs, conversations and space to feel. 

Whittemore, who’s responded to disasters like Hurricane Katrina, recognized that the community needed the support to grieve. The ministers stayed at the site through Sunday.

“All of the challenges in the world are out there,” she said. “I can preach it on Sunday, and it might be comforting to my people, but I don’t think it’s the tool anymore. It’s the presence, and that we just need to be out there doing this work.” 

She organized the selected clergy, most of them from ministries in Biddeford, Saco and Greater Portland, into shifts, making sure there was someone present at the site for six to eight hours a day. 

“We know our people,” Whittemore said. “We know the context. They need to see the people whose faces they’re going to see forever.” 

Emotions were raw in the first few days after the shooting, and there were dozens of visitors who paid their respects to the site at any given time. Some came from out of town, tourists who happened to be in the area. Others lived nearby, including some who saw Guerrero’s body after he was killed. 

“There was a lot of pain in the streets,” Whittemore said. “There’s a woundedness of the soul that needs a witness.” 

Clergy members initiated conversations. Grandparents conveyed their hopelessness for the present and the future that their grandchildren are inheriting. Small children inspired their parents when they insisted upon visiting the memorial. 

On a sunny Friday afternoon at 1:30 p.m., Green unfurled the Colombian flag that hung between the telephone pole and street sign. The wind had twisted it into a tight roll. 

Her bright yellow shirt had dark black lettering: “Chaplain. Here for you with a chat or hug.” Her curly hair stuck out beneath her black baseball cap, also labeling her as a chaplain.

The Portland-based independent minister said she thinks of her role as part witness, part steward to the memorial and part spiritual bouncer, protecting visitors from the few instigators who shout harsh things from their cars. Really, it involves a lot of patience and intuition. 

On Friday, Lauren Forte and Rob Nicoll approached the memorial, adding sunflowers from their farm share to the hundreds of flowers on and in the hedge. They noticed the flowers they brought a few visits ago, shriveled and sun-bleached on the sidewalk. “It’s still beautiful,” Forte said. 

They live a few blocks away, and have visited the memorial a few times a week.

The corner shouldn’t be a place to stop, Nicoll said. It’s loud. And busy. But he can’t imagine it not being a place to pause and remember. 

The Rev. Devin Green, left, gives a hug to Ysabel Arsenault, of Biddeford, and Bee Roeder, of Bangor, at the memorial where Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)

“Nothing can be done to fix this,” Forte said. 

“It’s really hard and heavy,” Green said.

It can be difficult to hold the pain of so many, Green said, especially when the initial shock and adrenaline starts to wear off. 

“There’s a lot of grief,” she said. “A lot of trauma.”

The on-the-ground team members took care of each other, making sure they were hydrating and eating enough and taking time away if needed. But it’s hard, Green said, to know that members of the community are in so much pain. 

The Rev. Devin Green, left, and the Rev. Tara Humphries share a moment on Saturday at the memorial where Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent at the corner of Hill and Pool streets in Biddeford on July 13. Faith leaders have been providing street ministry at the site to anyone that wants to talk or would like a hug. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer)

The memorial grounds her. 

“It restores humanity when you see people showing up,” she said, gesturing at the growing offerings. Someone dropped off stickers while she stood witness. There’s a potted pepper plant, its bounty up for grabs. “It doesn’t compensate, but it’s something.”

Local clergy are shifting their focus to weekly vigils on Tuesdays in Mechanics Park in Biddeford through the end of summer, providing community members with a nondenominational space to gather. They’re talking about transitioning to indoor events when the weather gets colder, said Paula Norbert, the pastor at Union Church in Biddeford Pool. 

Green has turned to nature in this moment, something she’s always found spiritually sacred.

The other day, she spoke with a man who regularly walks his dog by the corner of Pool and Hill streets every day. His dog always goes crazy near the hedges. 

“There’s a bird commune that lives in it,” Green said. 

She likes to think the birds were watching when Guerrero took his last breath, that they’ve been tending to the memorial, their home. “They know much more about what’s going on than we do,” she said. 

In quiet moments, Green hears the birds chirping.