Judge rules to release evidence in Border Patrol shooting of Marimar Martinez

CHICAGO, Ill. (Capitol News Illinois) — Marimar Martinez, the Chicago woman who survived being shot five times by federal Border Patrol agents last fall, received permission from a judge Friday to share certain evidence from her case with the public.

Although the case brought against Martinez was dropped by the federal government in November, evidence from her trial has remained sealed under a protective order. She sought to release body camera footage, photos, text messages and other evidence.

Attorneys for Martinez argued that the order has prevented her from being able to defend herself against a “pernicious misinformation campaign” by the federal government, which has repeatedly referred to the Montessori school teacher’s assistant as a “domestic terrorist.”

U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis agreed, ruling largely in Martinez’s favor in a downtown Chicago hearing. She allowed the modification of the protective order to release text messages from the agent who shot Martinez, as well as about 300 images from vehicle tracking cameras.

Central to the complaint were social media posts by high-ranking members of the Trump administration, including Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who posted that Martinez had been armed with a semi-automatic weapon and had rammed into agents with her vehicle. Court records show that Martinez’s weapon was in her purse, snapped closed inside a holster.

McLaughlin also falsely stated that the incident had taken place in Broadview, rather than the Southwest Side Chicago neighborhood of Brighton Park, and accused Martinez of doxing agents and posting an incendiary statement online — one that Martinez’s lawyers say was “certainly never posted online.”

That post has remained up on X and received over 5 million views, even after Martinez’ charge of assaulting a federal officer was dismissed with prejudice. Martinez has no convictions or pending criminal charges, according to her attorneys.

Martinez’s arrest came after she followed federal agents with her car for several blocks, calling out “La Migra,” a Spanish slang term for federal immigration enforcement agents, to alert others nearby.  Martinez’s and federal agents’ vehicles collided, causing minor damage to both vehicles before agents shot Martinez.

In a motion filed Wednesday, Martinez’s lead attorney Christopher Parente accused the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, which has been representing DHS in the case, of being complicit in the misinformation campaign.

“While a federal prosecutor has a duty to inform the Court when she knows a government witness is lying on the witness stand, so too should that duty extend to when its client is making false claims to the press that the Office knows to be untrue,” Parente wrote.

“Yet here, DHS continues to repeat false statements about Ms. Martinez as the U.S. Attorney’s Office turns a blind eye. They are no longer passive observers to the false statements made by DHS; they are active enablers of an out-of-control client.”

Federal prosecutor Ron DeWald, representing DHS in the case, objected to the characterization of DHS as a client.

Pending redactions over the weekend, Parente told reporters after the hearing they expect to release the evidence no sooner than Monday.

Vehicle surveillance photos

In response to the request by Martinez to unseal records, DHS sought primarily to block the release of two categories of evidence.

DHS did not seek to block the release of body-worn camera footage, audio of Martinez’s 911 call or FBI interviews of agents. The agent who shot Martinez did not have his body camera activated at the time of the shooting, but other agents did.

The feds did seek to block the release of still image photos captured by license plate reader cameras and cameras from the security software company Flock Safety, which logs details including license plate, make, model and other information about cars into a database accessible to law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and private companies.

Flock came under fire from Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias last year after a Texas sheriff accessed Illinois license plate data to search for a woman who had recently had an abortion. Giannoulias also alleged the company broke state law by allowing federal immigration officers access to state license plate data.

DHS argued that the license plate camera photos do not contain information about Martinez’s car and that release of those photos would reveal the location of the cameras, thereby endangering future investigations and compromising public safety.

However, Parente claimed law enforcement obtained 30 days of Flock camera images of Martinez’s vehicle to support their allegations that she was a “domestic terrorist.”

“They presumably wanted to be able to show her driving from the dynamite factory on Cicero to the suicide vest store on Armitage,” Parente wrote sarcastically. “Instead, they presumably noticed her driving to Target for school supplies and Michael’s for crafting materials for her students.”

The release of the license plate reader photos would undermine the federal government’s claim that Martinez was part of a “carefully orchestrated ambush” between Martinez and other collaborators, Parente wrote.

Alexakis ruled that the Flock images should be released, but not the other license plate reader photos. Those Flock cameras, Alexakis said, are not hidden and release of the images would not undermine law enforcement by identifying the location of the cameras.

She also agreed that the release of the Flock images would be in the public interest as it could either support or dispel the government’s accusations against Martinez, allowing the public to draw its own conclusions.

Parente says the images show Martinez and a co-defendant who also had his charges dismissed never crossed paths over a 30-day period, disproving the government’s allegations of a coordinated ambush.

Alexakis denied the request to release other license plate photos, finding that they were of “minimal value” to Martinez, as they mostly show drivers of other vehicles who would face privacy concerns if the footage was released.

Agent’s text messages

DHS also sought to block the release of text messages sent by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum, who shot Martinez, to his wife, brother and co-workers, calling them “private.” But Alexakis ruled with Martinez, agreeing to allow the release of redacted versions of those text messages to protect the identity of Exum’s family members and co-workers.

“I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book, boys,” Exum allegedly wrote in one of five messages made public in November.

DHS argued against the release, saying doing so would serve only to further sully Agent Exum, his family, and co-workers. They argued if the texts are released, they should include redactions.”

Parente called out what he saw as “irony” in the government’s logic.

“Agent Exum sent these messages in the minutes, hours, and days after the shooting. These are his words. To the extent they would ‘sully’ his reputation more than his previously disclosed disgusting text messages already have, it is a fully deserved self-imposed sullying,” Parente wrote.

He contrasted that with Martinez, who he said had no say in being branded as a domestic terrorist.

“Unlike Exum, she never had a say in the things being written about her, as opposed to Exum having had full say in the things he chose to write and disseminate,” Parente wrote.

Alexakis was not persuaded by the concerns of sullying Exum’s reputation, she said, because of the “dichotomy” in reputation protection allowed to Exum and Martinez. The judge said Exum’s own testimony that reading the text messages brought him a “feeling of pride” in the shooting also prevented her from being persuaded by the sullying concern.

Broader implications

Martinez’s case has been used as a rallying cry by top Democrats in the state as they seek accountability for alleged misconduct of federal agents amid Operation Midway Blitz in the Chicagoland area last year.

The Illinois Accountability Commission, tasked with gathering evidence and making recommendations about misconduct of federal agents, signaled it would seek to make referrals for prosecution related to the shooting of Martinez, even if the federal government would not investigate Exum and other officers.

As the world witnessed the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, top Illinois Democrats have drawn parallels to agents’ conduct in Chicago, including the shooting of Martinez and of Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, a father of two fatally shot by an ICE agent during a September traffic stop in Franklin Park.

Gov. JB Pritzker has referred to DHS’s attempt to control the narrative around the shootings in Minneapolis as a continuation of a “playbook” it developed first in Chicago.

Parente argued that the evidence at issue in Martinez’s case is not just relevant for clearing her name, but that its release is also in the public interest, as it could help the public and elected officials learn more about how DHS responds when its agents use deadly force against U.S. citizens.

Counsel for both sides expressed optimism that they could come to an agreement over redactions of the text messages and other evidence produced for the trial, including body worn camera footage and FBI interviews of Exum and other agents.

“You see what happened to Ms. Good, you see what happened to Mr. Pretti, it’s terrible,” Parente told reporters after the hearing. “Now we’ll pull the curtain back and you guys can see how the government itself responds and interacts with all these agents in the moments after these shootings happen.”

(Reporting by Maggie Dougherty, Capitol News Illinois)

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.

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