Border Patrol agent shot Chicago citizen Marimar Martinez five times; DHS's same-day account was contradicted by its own evidence

On October 4, 2025, during the federal immigration crackdown in Chicago, U.S. Border Patrol agent Charles Exum shot Marimar Martinez five times while she was in her vehicle in the Brighton Park neighborhood. Martinez, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen and Montessori school teaching assistant with no criminal record, had followed an agents' vehicle and honked her horn to warn others that immigration agents were in the area; she was not herself the subject of any enforcement action. She drove herself to a hospital and was afterward taken into FBI custody.

Within hours, the Department of Homeland Security issued a public statement from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin saying that federal agents had been "rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars," that Martinez was armed with a "semi-automatic weapon," and that agents had fired "defensive shots at an armed US citizen." The criminal complaint filed against Martinez the next day by an FBI special agent described two vehicles striking agents' cars, not ten, and made no mention of a weapon. Martinez held a valid concealed-carry permit and her handgun remained in a holster at the bottom of her purse throughout the encounter. Body-camera footage later showed two agents in the vehicle with weapons already drawn roughly a minute before the collision, one of them saying "it's time to get aggressive."

Martinez was charged with assaulting, resisting and impeding federal officers. The U.S. Attorney's Office dropped the case, and a judge dismissed the charges with prejudice in November 2025 after her attorney argued the body-camera footage contradicted the agents' version of events. The same day as the shooting, Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino, who was directing enforcement operations in the city, emailed Exum: "In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!" In a group text, other agents congratulated Exum, and his own messages described the shooting to colleagues: "I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said use-of-force incidents "are thoroughly investigated, reviewed, and presented to the National Use of Force Review Board," and that Exum had been placed on administrative leave — paid, and standard for any significant use-of-force incident. As of February 2026, more than four months after the shooting, he had not been charged or otherwise disciplined.

Updates

2026-02-11 — Court unsealed the evidence over the government's objection [2][3][4]

U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis lifted the protective order over the case file after Martinez's attorneys argued the public should be able to review the facts, given that senior federal officials had continued to describe her as a "domestic terrorist" with a history of doxxing agents — claims for which prosecutors produced no evidence. Federal prosecutors had opposed release on the ground that it could damage Exum's reputation; Alexakis said the government had shown "zero concern" about damage to Martinez's reputation. The released material included Bovino's email, the agents' text messages, body-camera footage, FBI reports, and a hand-drawn diagram by an agent depicting Exum's vehicle blocked in by cars that Martinez's attorney said did not exist.

2026-02-11 — Martinez announced a Federal Tort Claims Act case against DHS and the agent [4]

Martinez announced she would pursue a Federal Tort Claims Act claim against the federal government and Exum over the shooting, with her attorneys mailing the administrative complaint that day and saying they would seek tens of millions of dollars in damages. Under the statute a claimant must wait six months for a government response before filing suit. Martinez had testified before congressional Democrats earlier in February about federal use-of-force incidents and was scheduled to attend the President's State of the Union address as the guest of U.S. Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García.

2026-08-10 — Martinez and nine others filed police reports against Midway Blitz agents [5][6]

On August 10, 2026, Martinez and nine other people filed police reports with the Chicago Police Department's Area 3 headquarters alleging crimes by federal agents involved in Operation Midway Blitz, ranging from illegal detention and battery to attempted murder. Martinez said federal authorities had not interviewed her in the ten months since the shooting and that the government had failed to act or discipline Exum, who remained on administrative leave.