A woman who survived being shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago filed a federal civil lawsuit Monday against the U.S. government as her attorneys allege that new evidence shows the agent was not in danger for his life and should face criminal charges.
Marimar Martinez, a teaching aide at a Montessori school, was shot in her car by Customs and Border Protection agent Charles Exum in October. The shooting occurred during the Trump administration’s mass immigration enforcement surge in Chicago last year, known as Operation Midway Blitz.
The lawsuit was filed a year after Martinez was shot under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows private citizens to sue the federal government. Federal agents cannot be directly sued, the attorneys said.
The lawsuit alleges negligence, battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false arrests, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution, attorney Michael Gallagher said at a news conference Monday.
“The reality is the shoot wasn’t justified. She almost lost her life as a result. She’s been dealing with the physical and mental injuries ever since then,” he said.
The attorneys also urged the Justice Department and local prosecutors to file criminal charges against Exum.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that consistent with policy, Exum was placed on administrative leave, though it did not immediately say whether Exum is still on leave. DHS referred all other questions to the Justice Department, which declined to comment on ongoing litigation.
According to Christopher Parente, also an attorney for Martinez, the investigation and an analysis of the scene his firm commissioned showed that Border Patrol agent Charles Exum shot Martinez without justification and was not in danger at the time of the shooting.
The attorneys showed a visual reconstruction alleging where Exum would have been standing as he opened fire on Martinez based on the bullets’ markings in her vehicle, her wounds and surveillance video.
Martinez was not driving at Exum when he shot her five times, as he had previously claimed, the attorneys said. One of the bullets, they alleged, went through the side of the rear passenger-side car seat, which showed Exum could not have been standing in front of the car when he shot.
“He was in no way, shape or form in the path of the vehicle. She was actually driving away from him, and we established that he charged her,” Gallagher said.
Exum was not wearing a body camera at the time of the shooting. In August, DHS said all ICE officers and agents in the field would be required to wear body cameras.
Martinez spoke briefly at the news conference, saying, “Right now, we’re just focused on moving forward with the civil case and just heal emotionally and physically.”
“I’m just glad to see another year, be with my family,” she said. “I want to spread awareness, because what’s happening is not normal. We shouldn’t stay here and normalize what’s happening.”
After the shooting, Martinez and another person at the scene were charged with using their vehicles to attempt to ram federal law enforcement officers, but the charges were dropped after federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss their own case. The motion came after additional video of the incident was shown and after it was revealed that Exum had bragged about the shooting in messages to other officers.
According to Reuters, records presented at the hearing showed that in a group Signal chat with other agents, Exum wrote: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.”
In a message to another recipient, Exum sent a news article about the event followed by the message: “Read it. 5 shots, 7 holes,” Reuters reported.
Parente asked Exum what he meant by those messages at the time. According to records presented at a hearing, Exum responded: “I’m a firearms instructor and I take pride in my shooting skills.”
Martinez’s case has been one of the highest-profile examples of federal authorities accusing civilians of ramming into vehicles driven by immigration agents.
