Moments before a 23-year-old man was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent, police body cameras captured him driving behind an ambulance in the beachside resort town of South Padre Island, Texas.
The driver, Ruben Ray Martinez, had an open bottle of Crown Royal whiskey in his blue Ford sedan and caught the eye of a local police officer directing traffic on March 15, 2025, after a major car accident.
Law enforcement officers from several agencies yelled commands at one another and to Mr. Martinez, before an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fired three bullets through the open driver’s side window, killing Mr. Martinez. Blood spread across his white T-shirt as he was pulled from the car and placed in handcuffs.
Nearly one year after the fatal encounter, the Texas Department of Public Safety released video, witness accounts and police reports that recorded a chaotic and confusing scene unfolding in the middle of the night.
Federal officials have said that Mr. Martinez, who was driving slowly and braking repeatedly, ran over an agent before he was shot, and some video appears to show a figure on the car. But some footage from key moments is missing, and some is grainy, making it difficult to render definitive conclusions.
In an interview after the encounter, a passenger in the car, Joshua Orta, 25, told investigators that an officer had been on the hood but that Mr. Martinez had been scared and did not mean to hurt anyone.
Mr. Martinez, who worked at an Amazon warehouse and had nothing more serious than traffic violations on his record, was the first of at least three Americans fatally shot by federal immigration agents during President Trump’s second term. The killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January occurred during large immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis, and bystander video drew intense scrutiny and challenged official explanations.
Mr. Martinez’s death did not take place during an enforcement action, but while the ICE agent helped local authorities control traffic after an unrelated car crash. It was not clear that he had been killed by an immigration agent until last month, when a watchdog group, American Oversight, unearthed internal ICE documents describing the killing.
Federal officials have since defended the shooting and attacked Mr. Martinez, saying he “intentionally ran over” a federal agent.
The shooting occurred around 12:40 a.m., as the car moved along a roadway crowded with vehicles and officers from several agencies — the South Padre Island Police, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and ICE — who were responding to the crash.
As he approaches the intersection, Mr. Martinez draws the notice of a police officer for driving closely behind an ambulance in an otherwise empty lane, passing a line of cars on his left, according to a written statement from the police.
The officer sees an open bottle of alcohol in the car and directs him to pull to the right. Mr. Martinez instead pulls forward, and an officer tells him to “keep going.” Mr. Martinez continues driving straight.
The car appears to momentarily stop at a crosswalk. An officer yells out “hold him,” but Mr. Martinez passes through the intersection, and then stops again.
“Hey, stop him,” an officer says. Another says, “Get him out, get him out, get him out.”
Mr. Martinez slowly pulls forward and to the left. Three gunshots ring out.
The documents released by the Texas Rangers identified the officer who opened fire as Jack C. Stevens, an agent with Homeland Security Investigations, which operates under ICE. Another officer with the same agency, Hector Sosa, was said to have been struck by the vehicle.
In all, the Texas Department of Public Safety released footage from surveillance cameras at two businesses and from the body cameras of five local and state officers. But the footage, taken at night and at a distance, provides an incomplete view of what took place.
One body camera is missing eight seconds during which the shooting happened; the state and local police did not respond to questions about the gap. Another body camera had video and audio that were out of sync. And the surveillance footage from one business, which jumps forward in time sporadically, skips the moment of the shooting.
No footage was provided from Mr. Stevens or Mr. Sosa — whose email signature states that he is a body camera coordinator. Neither state nor federal officials responded to questions about whether they had been wearing cameras.
Videos show that about five seconds before the shooting, Mr. Stevens and Mr. Sosa appear to cross in front of Mr. Martinez’s stopped car. Mr. Stevens moves to the driver’s side window, while Mr. Sosa remains at the front of the vehicle.
When Mr. Martinez’s vehicle moves forward slowly and begins to turn left, Mr. Sosa does not appear to move out of the way.
This is also the moment that the security camera footage jumps forward in time, capturing only one frame every two seconds. Two frames appear to show a figure on the hood of the vehicle, but with the currently available footage, it is impossible to conclusively determine whether that is the case.
The passenger, Mr. Orta, who was a friend of Mr. Martinez from childhood, told investigators in an interview hours after the killing that they had been drinking and had smoked marijuana. He said that Mr. Martinez had “panicked” because he had consumed alcohol and did not want to get arrested — and that Mr. Martinez had not intended to hit anyone.
“I saw the officer kind of like get on the hood,” Mr. Orta said in the videotaped questioning that was released last Friday. “He didn’t necessarily hit him, but it kind of, like, you know what I mean, caught his feet.”
If Mr. Sosa was on the hood of the car, the circumstances of how he got there are not visible. In body camera footage, someone is heard shouting “don’t jump on it!” just after the shooting. It is unclear what they are referring to.
A local prosecutor brought the case to a grand jury, which did not issue an indictment.
Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, said in a statement on Sunday that “we stand by the grand jury’s unanimous decision that found no criminality.”
He added, “This incident was investigated from every possible angle by an independent body, and it cleared our officer.”
Neither Mr. Sosa nor Mr. Stevens could be reached for comment. Mr. Orta died in an unrelated car crash in late February.
Lawyers representing Mr. Martinez’s mother, Rachel Reyes, said in a statement that the investigative materials show “no justification for Ruben’s killing.”
“These new videos confirm that Ruben’s car was barely moving when he was shot,” said the lawyers, Charles M. Stam and Alex Stamm. “That he was shot at point-blank range through his side window by an ICE agent who was in no danger.”
The agents were not visibly injured. Seconds after the shooting, the videos show Mr. Stevens pulling Mr. Martinez from the vehicle, and then walking away while other officers handcuff his motionless body. About a minute later, Mr. Stevens compresses his chest to revive him, without success.
Robin Stein and Haley Willis contributed reporting.
Pooja Salhotra covers breaking news across the United States.
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