Dozens of people gathered outside City Hall on Saturday to mark the approaching one-year anniversary of the death of Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old San Antonio resident who was shot and killed by a federal immigration officer on South Padre Island.<\/p>\n
The vigil honored Martinez\u2019s life while also calling for renewed scrutiny of the shooting after a grand jury recently declined to file criminal charges against the officer involved.<\/p>\n
Supporters chanted \u201cJustice for Ruben\u201d as speakers called for transparency and an independent investigation into the March 2025 incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow will be one year since the murder of San Antonio resident Ruben Ray Martinez,\u201d Corrie Rosen, Community Organizer, told the crowd. \u201cWe\u2019re here to celebrate his life but also to demand justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martinez was shot just before midnight on March 15, 2025, after driving up to the scene of a crash where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jack Stevens was assisting South Padre Island police.<\/p>\n
Body camera footage released by the Texas Department of Public Safety shows Stevens firing three shots at Martinez. Authorities have said Martinez failed to follow commands and drove his vehicle into an officer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t stop and then all of a sudden he drives, and when he drives he was bumper on me,\u201d One ICE officer says in the video.<\/p>\n
However, Martinez\u2019s best friend and the only passenger in the car, Joshua Orta, previously gave a different account of what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t floor it or nothing. It was just slowly moving,\u201d Orta said in an earlier interview. \u201cI know he didn\u2019t mean to hurt no officer. He wouldn\u2019t do nothing like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orta died last month in a crash in San Antonio before he could testify before the grand jury that later declined to indict anyone in the shooting.<\/p>\n
Members of Orta\u2019s family attended Saturday\u2019s vigil. Speaking on behalf of the family, Orta\u2019s brother said they would continue to seek accountability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe refuse to let them use my brother\u2019s death in vain to justify their actions,\u201d he said. \u201cJustice will be served for Ruben and my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martinez\u2019s mother did not attend the vigil but sent a statement that was read to the crowd. In it, relatives said they were grateful that people gathered to remember him and emphasized that his life was more than the circumstances of his death.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy family grieves with so many others that have lost children to events that could and should have been avoided,\u201d the statement said. \u201cIt is time now for transparency and accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizers said they are demanding the release of additional body camera footage, an independent investigation into the shooting and what they describe as acknowledgment of a cover-up.<\/p>\n
In a statement, officials with the Department of Homeland Security said they stand by the grand jury\u2019s decision. The agency said the incident was investigated by an independent body and that Stevens was cleared of criminal wrongdoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of people gathered outside City Hall on Saturday to mark the approaching one-year anniversary of the death…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[80799,57464,77092,69993,82,84,83,9040],"class_list":["post-205355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-immigration-officer","tag-independent-investigation","tag-jack-stevens","tag-ruben-ray-martinez","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-south-padre-island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}