Woman Shot 5 Times By Border Patrol Asks Judge To Unseal Body Cam: Marimar Martinez’s
Marimar Martinez was shot by federal immigration agents in Brighton Park during a tense October clash between law enforcement and neighbors who were protesting their presence in Chicago.
Border Patrol agents alleged that Marimar Martinez had been chasing them and accused her of ramming her car into a federal agent’s car, which led them to shoot her multiple times. Martinez survived the shooting and was later charged with felony assault.
Martinez and her attorney, however, disputed the federal government’s narrative, and the case quickly fell apart.
Text messages revealed that the Border Patrol agent who shot Martinez, Charles Exum, bragged about the shooting. Body camera footage also showed one of the agents saying, “Do something, b—,” before Martinez was shot, according to her attorney.
In November, the federal government dropped its case against Martinez.
As part of the case’s dismissal, a court order restricted public disclosure of discovery materials produced by the federal government during the case, citing privacy concerns.
Martinez is still publicly labeled on Department of Homeland Security webpages and in social media as a “domestic terrorist” who rammed federal vehicles. In one instance cited in the filing, a video shared by FBI director Kash Patel was described as showing Martinez attacking agents. However, her attorneys say the footage depicts an unrelated incident and does not include Martinez or her vehicle.
“The Protective Order has become an albatross around her neck and keeps the entire country in the dark about how DHS responds to lethal force incidents by their agents, which have now unfortunately become a weekly occurrence,” wrote Chrisopher Parente, an attorney for Martinez, in his motion seeking the evidence’s public release.
