The attorney for a woman who was shot by federal agents in Chicago over the weekend after she allegedly rammed a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) vehicle has claimed that body-camera footage captures one of the officers saying: “Do something, bitch,” before opening fire, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The shooting occurred on Saturday morning in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood, as immigration agents, at the behest of the second Trump administration, have been scouring Illinois’s largest city for people to deport.
Federal agents allege that the woman, 30-year-old Marimar Martinez, was involved in a vehicle chase that ended in her ramming a CBP vehicle. Authorities claim that a government vehicle carrying three border protection agents was followed and boxed in by a “convoy of civilian vehicles”, including cars driven by Martinez and another driver, 21-year-old Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz.
Both Martinez and Ruiz have been charged with “forcibly assaulting, impeding, and interfering with a federal law enforcement officer”, according to the US justice department.
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On Monday, after Martinez’s attorney disputed the government’s portrayal of the case, a judge ordered her and Ruiz released from custody pending trial, ABC7 Chicago reported.
According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, the government says that the convoy of vehicles followed the CBP agents “closely” and pursued them “aggressively”. They claim that Martinez and Ruiz drove into and struck the CBP vehicle, “leading to a temporary loss of control” of the car.
“After being struck and boxed in by the Martinez and Ruiz Vehicles,” prosecutors say an agent exited the vehicle. The complaint alleges that Martinez then drove her car northbound in the direction of the agent, at which point, the agent “proceeded to fire approximately five shots from his service weapon at the driver of the Martinez Vehicle”.
The complaint alleges that Martinez fled the scene and was later found at a repair shop about a mile away. She was transported to hospital and treated for gunshot wounds.
Federal officials with the Department of Homeland Security said Martinez was armed with a semi-automatic weapon at the time of the incident and had allegedly doxed – or published sensitive identifying information about – agents online the week prior. However, the criminal complaint does not mention her being armed.
During a detention hearing on Monday, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Martinez’s defense attorney, Christopher Parente, challenged the government’s account of the incident, and claimed that the body-camera footage shows an officer saying to Martinez, “Do something, bitch,” before firing at her.
Parente at the hearing also said that the footage showed the officer driving the vehicle suddenly “turn the wheel to the left” then jump out and “just start shooting”, according to the Chicago Tribune.
“What I do know is – it was Ms Martinez who has seven holes in her body from five shots from this agent, who fired within seconds of getting out of this vehicle,” Parente said, as the Tribune reported.
The body camera footage has not been made public.
At the same hearing, the Chicago Tribune reported, assistant US attorney Sean Hennessy described Martinez and Ruiz’s actions as “extremely dangerous and extremely reckless”.
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The Tribune reported that Hennessy also said that the body-camera footage also recorded agents saying: “We’re getting boxed in! We gotta get out of here! She’s going to make contact,” before the car was indeed struck.
According to the Tribune, Hennessy also mentioned in the hearing that Martinez had a loaded gun in her purse at the time of the incident. He reportedly said that she has a concealed-carry permit and acknowledged that she did not brandish the gun during the interaction.
The Trump administration’s ramped-up immigration enforcement in Chicago has been met with protests.
Meanwhile, national guard troops from Texas were headed to Illinois after a federal judge declined to immediately block them in the wake of an Illinois lawsuit against the Trump administration.
US district judge April Perry allowed the federal government to continue the troop deployment in Chicago while it responds to Illinois’ suit.
