Body camera footage, text messages and other evidence released Tuesday shed new light on details around the case of Marimar Martinez, who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago last year. Martinez was accused of using her car to assault federal law enforcement before the case against her was dismissed in November.
The new evidence was part of a trove the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago made public after a judge last week ordered their release.
Border Patrol agent Charles Exum, who shot Martinez five times, was not wearing his body camera during the incident, according to Martinez’s attorney. Body camera footage from another agent who was at the scene shows the moments leading up to and after the shooting from inside Exum’s vehicle.
In one video, the agents inside the vehicle have their weapons drawn, and one is heard saying, “It’s time to get aggressive and get the f--- out, because they’re trying to box us in.”
“We’re going to make contact and we’re boxed in,” another says.
Exum is then seen quickly turning the steering wheel sharply to the left and an apparent jolt from the impact of a collision immediately follows.
Exum then exits the vehicle and shortly after five gunshots are heard off camera.
Texts to and from Exum show him describing the “big time” support he received after the shooting. Responding to a text asking if people have been supportive, he wrote back, “Everyone has been including Chief Bovino, Chief Banks, Sec Noem and El Jefe himself … according to Bovino,” referring to former Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “El Jefe” is Spanish for “the boss.”
In one email hours after the shooting of Martinez, Bovino, the former commander-at-large of Border Patrol who has since been removed from the post and returned to his station in El Centro, California, wrote to Exum, “I’d like to extend an offer for you to extend your retirement beyond age 57. … In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!”
“This evidence conclusively rebuts the false narratives that Ms. Martinez was anything but a victim of a horrific violent crime,” said a statement from Martinez and her attorneys Tuesday afternoon, before the evidence was released to the public.
During a news conference on Wednesday, Martinez's attorney Chris Parente said the public release of materials associated with the case was critical because “people can actually see the real evidence, as opposed to the false claims by our government.”
“Most people, after their criminal indictment has been dismissed, would stop fighting, but to have your own government call you something as hurtful and as harmful as a domestic terrorist when you know you’re not is just unacceptable,” he said.
“Marimar was able to get discovery in this case that shows you exactly how this agency handles a shooting in the immediate aftermath, and it is scary,” he said.
He defended Martinez as a Montessori school teacher with no criminal record who was on her way to donate clothes to a local church when the encounter with immigration agents began.
After a federal judge on Friday ruled that the texts could be released publicly, Parente told reporters, “This man, after shooting a woman who did nothing, is going to text his friends and joke about it, brag about it, ‘put it in your book.’”
“That’s not what this country stands for,” he said.
Exum’s text messages were the topic of a previous court hearing on the case, where records show he wrote in group chat with other agents, “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” In a separate message, he shared a news article about the shooting and wrote, “Read it. 5 shots, 7 holes.”
Government attorneys have previously said in court that South Bend prosecutors are handling a probe into the shooting. Exum is on administrative leave, "consistent with policy," a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said.
After the charges against Martinez were dropped with prejudice, her legal team said the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis created for them a renewed sense of urgency to show the American people how Department of Homeland Security leaders respond to officer-involved shootings.
“We know sort of what it looks like behind the curtain, and it’s scary, and it will continue to happen in city after city when the bosses of these border patrol agents do what they do in the immediate aftermath of a shooting,” Parente said.
Martinez was accused of using her car to assault and impede federal law enforcement before the charges against her were dismissed in November. The charges against her were dropped after federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss their own case.
Her case has been one of the most high-profile examples of civilians being accused by federal authorities of ramming into a vehicle driven by immigration agents.
DHS and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Martinez gave emotional testimony on Capitol Hill in a forum organized by Democratic senators last week recounting her experience, calling herself a survivor who was shot by DHS and then immediately labeled as a “domestic terrorist.”
“The mental scars will always be there as a reminder of the time my own government attempted to execute me, and when they failed, they chose to vilify me,” Martinez told Congress.
She compared her story to that of several people killed by immigration law enforcement under the Trump administration.
“I am Renee Good. I am Alex Pretti. I am Silverio Villegas- Gonzalez. I am Keith Porter. They should all be here today,” she said, referring to the two U.S. citizens killed in Minneapolis, a Mexican immigrant shot dead by an immigration officer in Chicago and a man fatally shot by an off-duty ICE officer in California.
She testified that she had been on her way to deliver some clothes she’d collected from her home to a church, when she spotted immigration enforcement vehicles and tried to warn friends and neighbors of their presence by honking her horn and shouting “La Migra,” a Spanish slang term for immigration authorities.
Martinez said the Border Patrol agent swerved twice into her lane and that, after she stopped her car, “it seemed time stopped.” Initially she thought the sensations in her arms and legs were from being hit by pepper balls. She tried to continue driving, but heard her back passenger window shatter and felt “bullets continue to pierce my body.”
“I knew I had to get to safety before I was dragged from my car and likely beaten or killed,” Martinez said, describing driving away from the scene, trying to swerve away from the agents, and then feeling bullets pierce her body “like a burning sensation.”
“I was losing this battle,” she said at the forum. “I saw my life flash before me and slowly began to think, ‘This is the end of me.’”
