Federal prosecutors filed felony assault charges against a woman who was shot Saturday by U.S. Border Patrol on the Southwest Side, in what led to a heated confrontation between federal agents and nearly 100 protesters.
A Department of Homeland Security statement says the woman rammed her vehicle into the vehicle of federal agents, then took “defensive fire” from the agents. The woman was treated at a hospital and was discharged into the custody of the FBI, the statement says.
The charges filed Sunday morning accuse Marimar Martinez, 30, and Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, 21, of driving their vehicles in a civilian “convoy” that was following federal agents driving as part of a security detail for a Customs and Border Protection operation.
According to the eight-page criminal complaint, the civilian vehicle “drove aggressively and erratically towards” the federal agents’ vehicles, disobeyed stop signs, red lights and drove “the wrong way down one-way streets in order to pursue the CBP vehicles.”
When the agents’ vehicle neared 39th Street and Kedzie Avenue, civilian vehicles boxed them in, and Martinez drove her vehicle up along the driver’s side of one of the agent’s vehicles, according to the charges. That’s when Martinez’s vehicle sideswiped the federal vehicle, and Ruiz’s vehicle struck the rear-right end of the federal vehicle, the charges state.
A federal agent in an armored personnel carrier in Brighton Park on Saturday. Residents say agents fired tear gas canisters and pepper balls at protesters for several hours after a woman was shot and taken into custody on suspicion of interfering with law enforcement operations.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Agents then got out of the vehicle, and Martinez then drove toward one of the agents, according to the charges. The agent then fired “approximately five shots from his service weapon at the driver of the Martinez vehicle,” the charges state. Martinez continued driving north on Kedzie, the charges state.
After the shooting, Ruiz drove to a gas station, where authorities arrested him, according to the charges. Paramedics found Martinez at a repair shop near 35th Street and California Avenue, about a mile northwest of where the shooting happened, and she was treated at a hospital for “gunshot wounds,” the charges state.
The charges say Martinez and Ruiz “forcibly assaulted, resisted, opposed, impeded, intimidated, and interfered with an officer of the United States.” The charges do not mention anything about Martinez being found with a gun, which a separate DHS statement alleges.
Relatives of Martinez told the Sun-Times on Sunday that she was OK and remains in federal custody.
Christopher Parente, a lawyer for Martinez, said he was working to set a detention hearing. He declined to comment further.
The morning after the shooting, the sound of a border patrol helicopter could be heard circling the Brighton Park neighborhood. Crime scene tape blew in the wind. Yard signs placed by an immigrant rights group gave the number of a hotline to report ICE activity.
Witnesses described a day of chaos Saturday fueled by federal agents who they said antagonized the community by firing tear-gas canisters and shooting pepper balls at protesters for several hours after the shooting.
The Sun-Times interviewed more than half a dozen neighbors, who all asked not to be identified out of fear for their safety.
“They say Chicago is so violent, but this is the first time in 50 years on this block we’ve ever had commotion around here that big,” said one longtime resident who asked not to be identified.
Another neighbor said the use of tear gas was an unnecessary overreach by the federal agents.
“No one was in the faces of the officers, they were just shouting at them to get out of here,” she said. “All they were doing was screaming, they were speaking their minds.”
The woman said everyone in her family is a citizen, but she and her siblings are scared of being racially profiled.
“My mom’s been trying to keep me calm, saying, ‘You’re a citizen, they can’t really do that to you,’” she said. “But I’m Brown.”
The woman’s boyfriend said Saturday’s events also had him on edge. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” he said.
Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th) said the federal agents’ tactics were “calculated to raise tensions.”
The White House confirmed Saturday that it “authorized” the deployment of National Guard troops to Illinois over opposition from Gov. JB Pritzker.
Asked Sunday on CNN about the shooting, Pritzker said little was known about how it happened.
“What happens in these sorts of incidents is, typically, ICE puts out a press release before anybody else can speak with the press, and then it gets reported on social media and elsewhere,” Pritkzer said. He pointed to the fatal ICE shooting of a man last month in Franklin Park.
“At first, they said that the officer had been threatened with his life. The reality of it and the truth of it has now come out, and that wasn’t the case. They killed somebody. So, here, it’s really hard to know exactly what the facts are. And they won’t let us access the facts. They are just putting out their propaganda, and then we have got to later determine what actually happened.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson has not commented on Saturday’s shooting. Johnson spoke Sunday morning at an event honoring Bishop Larry D. Trotter but didn’t address the shooting and left without speaking to reporters. The mayor is expected to speak at a news conference Monday.