The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is facing questions from lawmakers over its account of the shooting of a U.S. citizen in Chicago after a criminal complaint filed against the victim differed from its initial description of events.
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat representing Connecticut, has written to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem asking for her to correct the public record and release all bodycam footage of the incident, claiming that “the evidence appears to contradict” the official account.
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“As you know, when the government misrepresents or lies about events involving the safety and wellbeing of federal law enforcement, it erodes public trust, making their jobs much harder,” he said in the letter.
Murphy accused the DHS and the Trump administration of “contorting, they are omitting facts in some cases, and in other cases, they are straight up lying in order to support their narrative that these Democratic-led cities and states are war zones.”
“This isn’t information. It’s propaganda,” he said in a video posted to social media.
Marimar Martinez, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen, was shot multiple times by a federal agent after the DHS alleged she was involved in ramming the car of Border Patrol agents in Chicago earlier this month. Her attorneys and the DHS—and even different bodies within the U.S. government—have conflicting depictions of who is at fault for the escalation prior to the shots fired.
Just hours after Martinez was shot, the DHS released a statement from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin that said that federal agents were “rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.” The statement also alleged that one of the people who “boxed” in the agents, who it later identified as Martinez, was armed with a “semi-automatic weapon.” After the collision of cars, agents exited the vehicle and fired five times at Martinez—shots that McLaughlin said were “defensive” shots.
“Law enforcement was forced to deploy their weapons and fired defensive shots at an armed US citizen who drove herself to the hospital to get care for wounds,” the statement released on Oct. 4 said. The statement also says that Martinez had already been named in a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) intelligence bulletin for “doxing” ICE agents on the internet
Murphy noted, however, that the criminal complaint filed against Martinez the next day tells a different story. The complaint, written by FBI Special Agent Caitlin Malone, said that only two cars rammed federal agent vehicles, rather than the overwhelming 10. There is no mention of her brandishing a weapon, as the original DHS statement implied, nor any firearms at all on Martinez.
Police audio later confirmed that Martinez had a concealed carry permit for her weapon, which stayed inside her purse throughout the incident, according to Fox Chicago.
Senator Murphy said the incident is part of a pattern of behavior from DHS wherein the agency publishes misleading information in an attempt to justify violent incidents.
“So the DHS statement which they rush out three hours after the shooting to try to justify what happened. It’s just filled with misleading and false claims, and it’s really disturbing because it’s becoming their standard practice,” Murphy said in the video posted to social media.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment from TIME.
Murphy also attempted to debunk the DHS claims that Chicago police abandoned federal agents after the ramming incident by showing videos of Chicago police officers on scene after Martinez was shot, and clips of officers wiping their eyes after being affected by teargas deployed by agents.
Martinez has been indicted by a grand jury and has pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against her, including assaulting, resisting, and impeding officers. Her attorneys claim that it was federal agents who swerved into Martinez, rather than the other way around.
Christopher Parente, an attorney representing Martinez, said he had seen bodycam footage from the incident that will prove her innocence, and that it even contradicts the claims that she directly threatened agents with her vehicle.
“He’s driving with one hand, and he turns it to the left,” Parente told CNN anchor Omar Jimenez of the content in the bodycam footage. “In my experience, when you turn your wheel to the left, your car goes to the left, which is where her car was.”
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Parente says he usually would not speak to the media until after the trial was over, but he is attempting to combat what he says is “misinformation” regarding Martinez’s case.
“The public needs to see this is not what they’ve been sold by the government,” he continued. “This is not a domestic terrorist. This is a 30-year-old Montessori School teacher with no criminal history who’s never done anything close to what they’re saying.”
According to a Chicago-Sun Times report, her attorney also said the body camera footage shows an agent holding an assault rifle prior to shooting Martinez, saying, “Do something b- – – -h.”
During a court hearing last week, U.S. federal attorneys shared that one of the key evidence points was now 1,000 miles away from the court. The federal vehicle that the government says Martinez rammed is now in Maine, rather than Chicago, Assistant US Attorney Aaron Bond said.
“I think you need to get the car back,” US District Court Judge Georgia Alexakis ordered Bond, according to CNN. “It’s a reasonable request. There’s only so much you can tell from photos.”
In his letter, Murphy calls on the DHS to investigate potential excessive use of force and to release evidence into their claim that they looked into Martinez prior to the incident.
He also questions how conservative activist Laura Loomer seemingly received photographs of Martinez’s car, which she posted on social media and claimed that a “DHS Source” provided her. Loomer perpetuated the now-debunked belief that Martinez drove herself to the hospital following being shot by DHS officers. Murphy calls on Noem to “describe whether DHS is investigating the leak of alleged criminal evidence to Ms. Loomer. ”
Murphy’s calls for an investigation come as the Trump Administration’s use of immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency agents and escalated immigration enforcement in Chicago come under heavy fire. Democratic leadership in Chicago and Illinois is fighting back heavily against Trump’s federal agents in the city, with Mayor Brandon Johnson creating “ICE-free zones” to limit where federal authorities can operate.
Chicago residents are also fighting back with protests across the city, including regular demonstrations outside of an ICE facility in the suburb of Broadview.
More than 1,000 arrests have been made across Illinois in Operation Midway Blitz, according to DHS, which has included detaining and arresting people in “military-style raids” with tactics that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said “should never be used on children in a functioning democracy.”
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