Federal judge will let Marimar Martinez release text messages sent by Border Patrol agent who shot her
Federal prosecutors say the public release of text messages sent by the Border Patrol agent who shot Chicago’s Marimar Martinez last fall could only serve one purpose: to “sully” his reputation.
But the Trump administration has shown “zero concern about the sullying of Ms. Martinez’s reputation,” a federal judge pointed out Friday.
That’s partly why U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis said Martinez will be allowed to share the text messages with the public — as long as all names are redacted except for Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum’s.
He shot Martinez five times on Oct. 4 on Chicago’s Southwest Side.
“[Marimar Martinez] is a United States citizen,” Alexakis said. “She’s a resident of this district. And under our legal system — it bears repeating — she is presumed innocent of any offense of which she has not been convicted.”
The judge added that, “Agent Exum’s text messages provide insight into his perspective of the shooting. They bear on his credibility. They provide insight into how others within [Homeland Security] leadership and within other government entities responded to the shooting.”
The messages in question were between Exum and his family and colleagues. They came into Martinez’s possession during the exchange of evidence in her failed prosecution and could be released as early as Monday, her attorneys say. In one text message that’s already been released, Exum seemed to brag about his marksmanship.
“I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes,” he allegedly wrote. “Put that in your book boys.”
Martinez was born in Chicago and works as a teacher’s assistant at a Montessori school. She is taking an increasingly prominent role in resisting the Trump administration’s deportation campaign, particularly since last month’s shooting deaths of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti by immigration officers in Minneapolis.
Martinez told the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ this week that she’s been afforded an opportunity that Good and Pretti never had. She then traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak in a public forum to Democratic members of Congress. Her attorney, Christopher Parente, says she plans to attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address later this month.
She’ll do so as a guest of Democratic U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia of Chicago.
Federal prosecutors filed an assault charge against Martinez after her encounter with Exum. It came in the midst of the Trump administration deportation campaign known as Operation Midway Blitz. The feds then dropped their case against her Nov. 20.
Homeland Security has yet to rescind its comment that Martinez is a “domestic terrorist.”
Meanwhile, Martinez was prohibited from releasing evidence in her case because of what’s known as a “protective order.” It’s routine and designed to prevent the improper public disclosure of evidence in a criminal case.
But Parente has said it’s keeping the country in the dark.
“We’ve seen what happened with Ms. Good, we’ve seen what happened to Mr. Pretti,” Parente told reporters after court Friday. “It’s terrible. Now we’ll pull the curtain back, and you guys can see how the government itself responds and interacts with these agents in the moments after these shootings happen.”
Alexakis also said Martinez could release images gathered by law enforcement of Martinez’s car during the investigation. Prosecutors said they would not object to the release of body-camera footage from the incident. There is no known video of the shooting itself.
Parente told Alexakis on Friday the dispute over the evidence could go away if the government was willing “to give a public statement today, along with [DHS Assistant Secretary] Tricia McLaughlin, that the United States government conclusively says Ms. Martinez is not a domestic terrorist.”
In a court filing Thursday, Parente accused Chicago U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros’ office of being “active enablers of an out-of-control client.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald DeWald then disputed, during Friday’s hearing, that Homeland Security is a “client” of the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago.
“They can’t tell us what to do,” DeWald said. “We can’t tell them what to do.”
However, a U.S. attorney’s office colleague of DeWald’s seemed to refer to Homeland Security as “our client” during a hearing in a separate case back in October. That case also related to Operation Midway Blitz.
On Oct. 4, Martinez followed a Chevrolet Tahoe driven by Exum, which also carried two additional Border Patrol agents. Martinez honked her horn, yelled “la migra” and tried to warn people about the agents.
She said things changed after about 20 minutes, once she pulled her Nissan Rogue beside Exum’s Tahoe near 39th and Kedzie. She said he swerved toward her Rogue and their vehicles swiped each other.
Martinez said she stopped her Rogue but feared being “manhandled” by the agents, so she drove away. She said she drove to her “farthest left,” to avoid the agents climbing out of their vehicle on her right. But as she passed, she said Exum opened fire.
She pulled over at a repair shop, was taken to a hospital and eventually into federal custody. Authorities then alleged that Martinez and another man “rammed” Exum’s car.
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