Marimar Martinez, Chicago woman shot and briefly charged by Border Patrol, moves to sue

Article Summary

CHICAGO (Capitol News Illinois) — The woman who once faced charges for assaulting Border Patrol agents after being shot five times is no longer on the defensive, now plans to launch her own civil lawsuit against Homeland Security and the agent who shot her.

Marimar Martinez, a 30-year-old Montessori school teacher’s assistant and lifelong Chicagoan, is pursuing a Federal Torts Claim Act case against the federal government for Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum’s alleged use of excessive force against her.

A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol told Capitol News Illinois in an email statement Thursday that Exum had been placed on administrative leave as consistent with policy for all significant use-of-force incidents. 

Shooting a firearm at a person, regardless of whether they die as a result, is classified as a deadly use of force, per Department of Homeland Security policy.

According to the Office of Personnel Management, administrative leave for investigative purposes is subject to a 10-workday annual limit. The leave is granted without loss of pay.

The Federal Torts Claim Act allows individuals to sue the federal government for monetary damages if federal employees acting in their official capacities caused personal injury, death or property loss via a negligent or wrongful act.

Martinez will seek tens of millions of dollars in damages when she gets her day in court, her attorneys said at a Wednesday news conference.

The first step, however, is to file a FTCA complaint, which Martinez’s lawyers said they would mail the same day. FTCA claimants must wait six months for a response to the complaint from the government before they may file a civil suit.

Martinez’s attorneys were confident the complaint would not receive a response, allowing them to file an official suit and have a bench trial in front of a federal judge for the Northern District of Illinois.

“I’m confident, based on their track record, …  we will get a fair trial, will hold this officer accountable, and we intend to fast forward this case,” Michael Gallagher, one of the attorneys representing Martinez, said. “We want to be at trial by October.”

Evidence released

Martinez’s lawyers also shared evidence from her case that had been under seal, even though a judge had dismissed the assault charges against her with prejudice in November.

A judge approved her request to unseal much of the evidence in the case last week. She’s now seeking to defend her reputation by publicly releasing evidence from her case that she says will refute Exum and the Department of Homeland Security’s claims that she is a “domestic terrorist” with a history of doxing agents and that she rammed agents with her car.

Federal prosecutors released text messages, body camera footage and photos from the scene. Martinez’s team says they will release additional records that were not in the batch made public by the U.S. attorney’s office.

Martinez’s team previewed some of those records during the news conference and discussed how the evidence undermines seven lies they identified as being weaponized by DHS in a “misguided smear campaign.”

“You (get) to see why it mattered, why it matters that people can actually see the real evidence, as opposed to the false claims by our government,” attorney Chris Parente said. “I mean, we live in a strange time right now where we cannot trust our federal government. I’ve never lived through anything like that.”

The lies outlined by Parente included the government’s claim that Martinez is a domestic terrorist, that she has a history of doxing federal agents, that she rammed into agents with her car and boxed them in, that all of Exum’s shots went through her windshield and that she was armed with a semi-automatic weapon.

What the records show

Martinez was on her way to donate clothes to her church last fall when she noticed a vehicle with Border Agents driving through her Brighton Park neighborhood, according to her attorneys. Photos of her vehicle show a black garbage bag filled with clothes in the back seat.

The agents were in Chicago during an immigration enforcement campaign called Operation Midway Blitz.

Martinez began trailing agents in her vehicle, following for about 15 minutes while honking and calling out “La Migra,” a Spanish term for federal immigration enforcement officers, to alert her neighbors to the agents’ presence.

Then, as Martinez was driving alongside the CBP vehicle, her lawyers say Exum “deliberately swerved” his vehicle into hers — contrary to DHS claims that Martinez “rammed” her vehicle into the agents’ car and boxed them in.

After the incident, one of the agents interviewed by the FBI drew a diagram reportedly showing the arrangement of cars on the road, which would support the agents’ version of events. A copy of that diagram was in the batch of records released by federal prosecutors.

The drawing depicts three vehicles ahead of the Border Patrol vehicle on the road, followed by vehicles driven by Martinez and her co-defendant, whose charges were also dismissed with prejudice.

However, video footage from a nearby auto shop showed two cars pass by, and then only after both cars were out of sight did the Border Patrol vehicle pass the shop.

“How can they claim they couldn’t go forward? We just saw that those cars ahead of them went forward,” Parente said. “They drew those cars in to justify a bad shooting.”

The shooting itself was not captured on body camera video, as Exum did not have his camera turned on, an apparent violation of department policy.

However, one of the agents in the back seat did activate his camera, capturing the moments before and after the shooting, in which Exum appears to veer sharply to the left in the direction of Martinez’s vehicle. Both vehicles came to a stop before Exum exited his car and shot Martinez five times, all in under two seconds.

Those shots, he claimed, were all directed through the windshield of Martinez’s car, something he and other agents repeated in their statements to the FBI. That would support the claim that Martinez was driving directly at agents when Exum shot her.

Yet attorneys for Martinez said the evidence contradicts that claim, showing three bullets on the passenger side of her car.

“She’s a car length away from this guy, and he’s a firearms instructor,” Parente said. “If she’s truly driving right at him, you’re going to have all five shots straight through the driver’s side of the windshield. Well, what do you have? Because she’s not driving at him, she’s driving away from him, you have three bullets on the passenger side.”

In statements released after the shooting, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin justified the shooting in part by claiming that Martinez was armed with a semi-automatic weapon.

Martinez, who attorneys said has a valid concealed carry license, had a gun stored in a bright pink holster, snapped shut at the bottom of her purse. Agents in the case did not claim at any point that Martinez took out the weapon or pointed it at them.

Martinez, Parente added, is a U.S. citizen who has no criminal record.

McLaughlin also posted a statement on X, quoting Martinez as saying, “Hey to all my gang let’s f— those mother f—–s up, don’t let them take anyone.”

However, attorneys for Martinez say that the evidence they are set to release shows that statement was made in an unrelated ICE report by someone not connected to Martinez. DHS has issued no retraction and the post remains visible online.

Parente also argued that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s written “Respect for Life” policy is a lie, pointing to a screenshot of an email in which then-Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino congratulated Exum on his “excellent service in Chicago” and offered him an extension of his retirement age.

The email was sent just hours after Exum shot Martinez, while she was still in the hospital and her survival was uncertain, before the completion of any investigation into the shooting.

“People want to know why no one did CPR to Miss Good when she was dying in the streets of Minneapolis,” Parente said, referring to Renee Good, the woman fatally shot by an ICE agent last month. “It’s because the agents were probably checking their phone to see what their reward was going to be for killing them, right? Because this is what the culture is at Border Patrol, you’re getting emails from the highest levels within hours of a shooting, rewarding you.”

Attorneys also highlighted a number of text messages sent and received by Exum from other agents, including texts calling him “a legend among agents” and promising to buy him beers to celebrate.

In one with his “Posse Chat,” a group chat with other Border Patrol agents, an agent asked Exum “Are they supportive?” apparently asking about DHS leadership.

“Big time,” Exum replied. “Everyone has been including Chief Bovino, Chief Banks, Sec Noem and El Jefe himself… according to Bovino.”

Martinez’s lawyers interpreted “El Jefe,” Spanish for “the Boss,” as a reference to President Donald Trump.

Most people would walk away quietly after their case was dropped, Parente said. But for Martinez, it was important to be a voice for others, like Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, all killed by federal agents in similar encounters around the country.

“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,” Parente said. “And that’s why Miramar instructed her team to continue to fight.”

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

By MAGGIE DOUGHERTY
Capitol News Illinois
mdougherty@capitolnewsillinois.com

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.