{"id":453392,"date":"2026-02-06T23:31:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T23:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/453392\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T23:31:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T23:31:21","slug":"border-patrol-agent-who-shot-marimar-martinez-will-have-text-messages-released-judge-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/453392\/","title":{"rendered":"Border Patrol agent who shot Marimar Martinez will have text messages released, judge rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2014 The text messages a Border Patrol agent sent to colleagues and family members after he repeatedly shot a Chicago woman in October can be released to the public, a federal judge ruled Friday. In messages previously made public, the agent bragged<\/a> about his marksmanship.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis stated in court that the text messages provide insight into the agent\u2019s and the Department of Homeland Security<\/a>\u2019s credibility, as well as into how DHS leadership perceived the shooting. <\/p>\n

The agent, Charles Exum, shot Marimar Martinez five times on Oct. 4, after she allegedly rammed her car into agents\u2019 vehicles. Martinez denies ramming them and said agents were the aggressors<\/a>. Exum did not have his body camera turned on during the incident. <\/p>\n

In one text message previously released, he bragged about his shooting skills,<\/a> writing: \u201cI fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Government lawyers argued that the release of Exum\u2019s text messages would further sully the agent and his family. <\/p>\n

The judge pushed back. \u201cI don\u2019t know why the United States government has expressed zero concern for the sullying of Ms. Martinez\u2019s reputation,\u201d Alexakis said. <\/p>\n

\"MarimarMarimar Martinez was released from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago in October.E. Jason Wambsgans \/ Chicago Tribune via Getty Images file<\/p>\n

Martinez\u2019s attorney, Chris Parente, said his team would work over the weekend with government lawyers on redactions, and Martinez\u2019s legal team would be releasing the evidence no earlier than Monday. <\/p>\n

Martinez pleaded not guilty in October to Justice Department charges that she used her vehicle \u201cto assault, impede, and interfere with the work of federal agents in Chicago.\u201d The government dropped its case against Martinez<\/a>, but her lawyers say officials have refused to correct the record after branding her a \u201cdomestic terrorist<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

The judge ruled Friday that more evidence in Martinez\u2019s case could be made public, including emails, text messages, investigative reports and statements by higher ranking DHS officials. Martinez’s lawyer said these will shine a light on their thinking and how they are instructing their officers. As part of this ruling, body camera footage from an agent who was in the vicinity of the shooting can also be released, as well as photos and reports from after the crash and audio from Martinez\u2019s 911 call. <\/p>\n

Alexakis noted that DHS has not publicly addressed that they dropped the case with prejudice \u2014 meaning they cannot seek to charge her in the case in the future. <\/p>\n

In court filings, Parente wrote that recent fatal shootings in Minnesota show why the evidence in Martinez’s case is important to the public interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on recent events in Minneapolis, Minnesota, involving the execution of two U.S. citizens who were engaged in similar peaceful protests as Ms. Martinez at the time of their killings, Ms. Martinez believes certain information disclosed in her case, and currently subject to the Protective Order, would be useful for both the public and elected officials to know regarding how DHS responds in cases where their agents use deadly force against U.S. citizens,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Parente also laid out a series of high-ranking officials in the Trump administration who had made misstatements about Martinez.<\/p>\n

That included an Oct. 6 post FBI Director Kash Patel shared from a different account that included a video on X that read: \u201cThis is the video where Marimar Martinez, aka La Maggie, rammed a white DHS vehicle who had their emergency lights on. Another DHS black SUV then attempts to ram Marimar\u2019s SUV from behind. One DHS agent is on the passenger side firing shots. Democrats are insane.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"MarimarThe case against Martinez was dropped by federal prosecutors.E. Jason Wambsgans \/ Chicago Tribune via Getty Images file<\/p>\n

As of early Friday, Patel had not taken down<\/a> that post. <\/p>\n

Martinez\u2019s attorneys also asked for the release of Flock surveillance camera footage from 30 days before the shooting \u2014 arguing that it would show her engaged in everyday activities and rebut DHS\u2019 statements that she has a history of doxxing federal agents and ambushing them.<\/p>\n

The judge ruled in favor of releasing that footage but not license plate reader camera data, saying it would have \u201clittle value\u201d to clear Martinez’s name.<\/p>\n

At one point during the court hearing, Parente said there would be no need to release any of the footage if the U.S. government publicly said that Martinez is not a domestic terrorist. The judge said the court wasn\u2019t expected to handle negotiations such as that.<\/p>\n

After the hearing, lawyers for Martinez said they will continue to fight to clear her reputation. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t call a U.S. citizen with no criminal history who\u2019s a Montessori school teacher a domestic terrorist, which is such a loaded word in this country, and repeat it over and over as late as yesterday,\u201d Parente said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 The text messages a Border Patrol agent sent to colleagues and family members after he repeatedly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-453392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}