Shocking footage of a federal immigration agent shooting an American teaching assistant could soon be made public as she seeks to show how she was falsely smeared just like Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
U.S. citizen Marimar Martinez, 30, was riddled with bullets during Operation Midway Blitz on Oct. 4, 2025, in Chicago, Illinois. She later revealed her horrific injuries and spoke of being haunted by the shooting.
Immediately afterwards, the Trump administration described Martinez as a “domestic terrorist” who had “rammed” a Border Patrol vehicle. Federal prosecutors charged her with assaulting an officer, but the case was dropped six weeks later.
While Martinez’s case did not receive as much attention as the fatal shootings of Good, an unarmed mom, and VA ICU nurse Pretti, both 37, it was arguably no less shocking.
A court heard how the man accused of shooting Martinez, Charles Exum—a 23-year Supervisory Border Patrol veteran—had driven his damaged SUV back to Maine after the shooting, despite the fact that it was evidence, and bragged to colleagues about his marksmanship.
In one text message, he allegedly wrote: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book, boys.” In another, he is said to have told friends: “Read it. 5 shots, 7 holes,” after sending them a news story about the shooting.
Exum is believed to have remained employed by Border Patrol, and he has not been publicly disciplined or charged.
Now Martinez’s attorney, Christopher Parente, has asked a federal judge to tear up a protective order that blocks Martinez from sharing bodycam footage, surveillance video, and internal DHS communications that show how “their agents use deadly force against U.S. citizens,” according to a motion reported Monday by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Parente argues the order—issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Heather McShain—is “an albatross” that “keeps the entire country in the dark about how DHS responds to lethal force incidents by their agents, which have now unfortunately become a weekly occurrence.”
“The ability to disseminate the factual evidence about the events of October 4 and DHS’s response to Ms. Martinez’s shooting is of the utmost importance to Ms. Martinez, and frankly to the entire country at this tragic time in our nation’s history,” Parente wrote.
The same filing says top Trump officials continue to brand Martinez a “domestic terrorist,” even though she has no convictions or pending charges. Federal officials have used the same label in a bid to justify the fatal shootings of Good and Pretti despite having no evidence whatsoever to back up those claims.
According to court records, the undisclosed videos of the Martinez shooting directly contradict the official line that agents were “ambushed” by a convoy that rammed their SUV. Parente says one agent’s bodycam captures a colleague in the back of the Border Patrol vehicle taunting, “Do something, b—-,” seconds before the crash and gunfire.
Martinez has described the moment she realized she was bleeding out in her car. In an interview with 60 Minutes, she said she “feared for [her] life” as blood poured from multiple wounds. She was left with seven entry and exit wounds from five rounds, underwent surgery, and still lives with pain and anxiety that make it hard to return to normal life, she said.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin has stuck to the administration’s “ambush” narrative. In a statement to 60 Minutes, she claimed Border Patrol agents were “ambushed by domestic terrorists that rammed federal agents with their vehicles,” and alleged Martinez was armed with a semi-automatic weapon and had a history of doxxing agents.
Martinez says she legally owns a gun, but that it stayed holstered in her purse the entire time, in much the same way Pretti’s did.
Parente’s motion says the federal officials’ false framing has seeped into the Supreme Court. Justice Samuel Alito, a George W. Bush appointee, cited Martinez’s case while backing Donald Trump’s bid to send National Guard troops to the city over the objections of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, 60, in a December dissent.
The push to unseal Martinez’s evidence comes as filmed killings in Minneapolis, Minnesota—of Good on Jan. 7 and Pretti on Jan. 24—have devastated public support for Trump’s immigration blitz.
Unlike those deaths, Martinez’s shooting was not captured on a bystander’s phone. If a judge now lets her share the bodycam, surveillance footage, and text records, it has the potential to produce the most detailed look yet at a Border Patrol shooting of a civilian during Trump’s second term.
A Washington Post analysis published Tuesday found 16 ICE and Border Patrol shootings since July, with no federal officer charged.
The Daily Beast has contacted DHS and McLaughlin for comment on whether the agency still stands by its description of Martinez as a “domestic terrorist,” and whether Exum has faced any kind of investigation or disciplinary action.
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