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South Padre Island Police Department body cam footage, released by Texas Department of Public Safety late Friday, shows the moment when 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez from San Antonio was killed at South Padre Island in March 2025. Credit: South Padre Island Police Department<\/p>\n
The Texas Department of Public Safety late Friday quietly released<\/a> body camera and security footage from a case in which federal immigration officers in South Padre Island last year shot and killed a 23-year-old San Antonio man. The video shows him driving slowly past officers stopping traffic, and at times interacting with them while his brake lights are on, before gunshots suddenly ring out.<\/p>\n The clips, which were reviewed by The Texas Tribune, do not show Ruben Ray Martinez hitting the Department of Homeland Security Investigations agent with his car, as the agency has repeatedly claimed. But they also do not provide clear evidence that he did not. The footage is from multiple vantage points and doesn\u2019t show everything \u2013 in some cases, key audio is missing. The federal agent in question was not wearing a body camera.<\/p>\n But lawyers for Martinez\u2019s family argued that the footage and related documents don\u2019t support the administration\u2019s assertion that he didn\u2019t follow their commands and then accelerated, hitting one of its agents and therefore necessitating lethal force.<\/p>\n \u201cThis batch of evidence shows no justification for Ruben\u2019s killing,\u201d said Charles Stam and Alex Stamm, attorneys for Martinez\u2019s mother, in a joint statement. \u201cWe, and the public, have yet to see all of the evidence held by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n Martinez was shot multiple times last March in the first known instance of DHS agents killing an American citizen during the second Trump administration, which has spurred Democratic lawmakers\u2019 push for further accountability. The incident remained unknown until last month when American Oversight, a nonprofit government watchdog, released<\/a> hundreds of pages related to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement\u2019s use of force that the organization had obtained in a lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n South Padre Island Police had initially only put out a press release on Martinez\u2019s death, but did not identify the agency responsible for the incident. Public records\u2019 requests did not immediately reveal the federal agency\u2019s involvement. A two-sentence police report<\/a> described Martinez striking a federal agent with his car, but did not mention the shooting.<\/p>\n Martinez was in South Padre Island celebrating his birthday with friends, according to a spokesperson for Rachel Reyes, Martinez\u2019s mother, and her lawyers. A self-proclaimed Trump supporter, Reyes has called<\/a> for an end to \u201cabuse and impunity\u201d among law enforcement since federal agents\u2019 role in her son\u2019s death has come to light.<\/p>\n His death last year occurred months before public outrage and protest over the killings of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota, who were both shot by federal immigration agents. One of those killed, Minneapolis resident 37-year-old Renee Good, was accused by federal officials of attempting to run over an agent before being fatally shot in her car. Body camera footage obtained <\/a>by media outlets has contradicted ICE\u2019s version of events in her case.<\/p>\n The body camera footage released by DPS\u2019 Texas Rangers late Friday, and separately shared by Martinez\u2019s lawyers, show a crowded scene in which multiple drivers coming across an unrelated accident in the busy island vacation spot\u2019s main thoroughfare were confused on how to respond. According to the DPS report released Friday, federal agents were also present to help with security and traffic control, which is common in this border community 30 miles from Mexico. Officers yelled at many of the approaching drivers, aggressively demanding that they redirect from the accident while drivers seemed unclear on how to navigate away from it safely on the island\u2019s primary road.<\/p>\n By the time Martinez arrived, after his lawyers said he had \u201ca few drinks\u201d and had been at a party and then to Whataburger, footage shows him driving slowly toward the intersection in a blue Ford Fusion. He stops away from the intersection and appears to speak with one officer. His car then creeps forward while an officer points in the direction that he is driving. The footage shows that his brake lights are on and he is slowing down as he reaches the intersection. He appears to come to a full stop once more, waiting for pedestrians to cross, before making a right turn.\u00a0<\/p>\n In contrast, a DHS spokesperson has claimed<\/a> that Martinez \u201cintentionally ran over\u201d a federal agent before another officer shot and killed him<\/p>\n Another body camera from a different vantage point shows the blue car driven by Martinez after it stops and before he makes the turn. One officer can be heard saying, \u201cstop him, stop him,\u201d appearing to run after the vehicle. Another officer says \u201cget him out.\u201d A separate body camera reveals an officer yelling, \u201cwhere\u2019s he going?\u201d<\/p>\n Footage, alongside reports by officers, show that a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game warden told another sergeant that Martinez had a bottle of Crown Royal, a Canadian whiskey, inside his car. An unidentified person in the video said to \u201ckeep going\u201d before one warden yelled to another officer to stop Martinez from driving forward. According to footage and law enforcement reports, Martinez drove into the intersection. Officers began running toward Martinez\u2019s car.<\/p>\n \u201cOut of the vehicle now,\u201d one yelled.<\/p>\n Seconds later, at about 11:42 p.m., gunshots ring out as bystanders are seen fleeing.<\/p>\n That is followed by officers yelling, \u201cshots fired.\u201d<\/p>\n Officers are seen dragging Martinez, wearing black Adidas pants, out of the car onto the pavement. They handcuff the man as he lays on the ground, barely moving. Paramedics later load Martinez onto a stretcher, with one officer calling an ambulance and another confirming \u201can exit wound.\u201d He was transported to a local hospital in Brownsville, where he later died. A toxicology report and autopsy of Martinez detected alcohol, marijuana and alprazolam, a prescription medication for anxiety, according to the records.<\/p>\n Footage also shows officers handcuffing Martinez\u2019s friend and passenger, 25-year-old Joshua Orta. Orta, who dictated a statement to attorneys to refute the government\u2019s account, died<\/a> in an unrelated car crash in San Antonio in late February before he could sign an affidavit or testify. His family has said he had been deeply troubled by what occurred that day.<\/p>\n \u201cHSI is fine,\u201d one officer said after the shooting, according to the footage. \u201cThat guy, they transported him.\u201d<\/p>\n Another officer adds, \u201cHSI tried to stop him.\u201d<\/p>\n A written statement sent to DPS from Jack Stevens, the HSI agent who shot Martinez, said he believed that the man looking past officers with clenched hands on the steering wheel was a \u201cpre attack indicator\u201d and that Stevens feared for his and others\u2019 safety before firing.<\/p>\n Stevens could not immediately be reached for comment. Spokespeople for DHS and ICE did not respond to questions about the new footage late Friday. A spokesperson for DPS, which oversees the Texas Rangers, also did not respond.<\/p>\n But in the agency\u2019s report released alongside the footage, investigators described a federal agent shouting to Martinez to stop the car before the agent \u201cultimately discharged his handgun toward the driver for not stopping.\u201d The report describes Martinez\u2019s car as \u201cslowly driving forward\u201d when he was shot.<\/p>\n The report also included interviews with several officials at the scene, including Stevens and another HSI agent who approached the vehicle. The other agent claimed Martinez\u2019s car \u201cbumped his legs\u201d after he was ordered to halt, and that he fell over the car\u2019s hood as the car made a turn.<\/p>\n None of that is visible in the available footage.<\/p>\n Footage from a body camera captured after the shooting showed an officer describing the scene to South Padre Island police chief Claudine O\u2019Carroll. The officer told the chief that Martinez had \u201cstepped on it\u201d after being told to stop and was \u201con top of agents in front\u201d of the car before shots were fired.<\/p>\n Lawyers for Martinez argued in a statement to the Tribune that the footage shows his car was \u201cbarely moving when he was shot. That he was braking, not accelerating. That nobody was on the hood of his car. That nobody was in front of his car when he was shot. That he was shot at point-blank range through his side window by an ICE agent who was in no danger.\u201d<\/p>\n After ICE\u2019s involvement in Martinez\u2019s death was made public last month, a Cameron County grand jury ruled<\/a> that it did not find probable cause to issue a criminal indictment related to the shooting. While prosecutors can pursue a case after such a decision by a grand jury, they rarely do.<\/p>\n In an interview<\/a> with CBS News this week, Martinez\u2019s mother who has mostly remained silent over the past year, said that she still does not believe DHS\u2019 version of what occurred.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was not a violent person,\u201d she said of her son. \u201cHe was not aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Apple News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>| Twitter<\/a>\u00a0| Or sign up for our\u00a0RSS Feed<\/a><\/p>\n Related Stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tThe feds say Ruben Ray Martinez intentionally struck an ICE agent with his vehicle, but the passenger in his car said the agent fired shots without warning.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n![\"YouTube](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772894846_432_hqdefault.jpg\")
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