ICE agent fatally shot U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez in South Padre Island stop

On the night of March 15, 2025, Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, was killed by a Homeland Security Investigations agent during a traffic encounter near a crash scene on South Padre Island, Texas. According to police records, the agent who opened fire was HSI Supervisory Special Agent Jack Stevens, who fired through the side window of Martinez's car at close range. In the account the agency gave afterward, Martinez accelerated his vehicle and struck an agent who was thrown onto the hood, framing the shooting as a response to a threat to officer safety.

Body-camera footage later obtained by CBS News and reviewed by lawyers for the Martinez family tells a different story. According to that reporting, the video shows the car barely moving — consistent with braking rather than accelerating — and shows no agent on the hood and no one positioned in front of the vehicle at the moment the agent fired. The discrepancy between the recorded footage and the agency's stated justification is the core of the matter: a federal immigration-enforcement officer used lethal force against an unarmed American citizen, and the official account of why does not match the available video evidence.

The killing remained out of public view for nearly a year. ICE did not confirm its involvement until roughly 11 months after the shooting, and the case surfaced publicly only through subsequent records disclosures and reporting in early 2026. A Texas grand jury declined to charge the agent in late February 2026, and ICE leadership, including acting director Todd Lyons, said the agency stood by that outcome. Members of Congress, including Representatives Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar, have since demanded fuller disclosure and an investigation into how the shooting was handled and why it went unreported for so long.