Bodycam video shows scene of Border Patrol agent’s shooting of Chicago woman Marimar Martinez

Bodycam videos of the moments surrounding the shooting of Marimar Martinez were released on Tuesday evening after a judge ruled they could be made public. Martinez was wounded in the shooting by a Border Patrol agent in October in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood.

The three videos, each between 15 and 20 minutes long, show the scene before and after the Oct. 4 shooting, much of it lining up with what Martinez’s attorney has maintained all along, after the federal government dropped its charges against her.

In one of the videos, the agents inside their vehicle are heard saying “we are boxed in” before their vehicle collided with another vehicle. Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum then exited the vehicle, and five shots were then heard. Video of the shooting by Exum was not shown. 

A black GMC Envoy was then shown reversing and hitting another vehicle before leaving the scene. 

Also released were images of the agent’s vehicle and text messages by Exum. One text message read, “put that one in your book buddy,” to which the responding message read, “good shootin, lol.” He then replies, “gracias senior.”

Images featured the agent’s vehicle and the Envoy damaged in the crash. 

Photos from the vehicle Marimar was driving that day were shown in those same text messages, one showing the bullet hole in the windshield of her vehicle. 

Martinez was shot five times in that incident. The Department of Homeland Security claimed she chased the agents and rammed her car into an agent’s car during an immigration protest near Pershing Road and Kedzie Avenue, but nearly two months after she was shot, federal prosecutors dropped assault charges that had been filed against her.

A judge dismissed the charges with prejudice, which prevents the government from filing them against her again.  

Attorneys for Martinez plan to announce a civil lawsuit at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday.