Judge Blasts Border Patrol Over Chicago Case 'Discrepancies'
Border Patrol Cop Who Shot Chicago Activist Bragged About Marksmanship, Judge Grills Him Over ‘Discrepancies’ In Case
Last month, we reported on the story of 30-year-old Marimar Martinez and 21-year-old Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, two Chicago residents who were charged with felony assault of a federal officer after being accused of driving separate vehicles in a “convoy” that was following Border Patrol agents and ramming their vehicles.
We also reported on the witness accounts, court records, 911 dispatch audio, and police bodycam footage that appeared to directly contradict narratives put forth by the Border Patrol agents involved in the incident and the Department of Homeland Security. Now, the agent who shot Martinez five times during the incident is under further scrutiny due to the revelation of text messages he sent his colleagues afterwards, in which he boasted about his marksmanship, which came up during the trial. He was also questioned by the presiding judge about his department’s apparent failure to properly preserve his vehicle as evidence in the case.
It’s almost as if the more we learn about this case, the shadier the government’s side of the story becomes.
According to CNN, text messages sent by Charles Exum, the federal agent who shot Martinez, were displayed in court Wednesday as Martinez’s defense attorney, Christopher Parente, presented his argument to back his claim that the government potentially destroyed evidence that may have supported his assertion that Border Patrol officials released Exum’s damaged vehicle and allowed the agent to drive it more than 1,000 miles to his home state of Maine before it had been cleared by investigators. But before we get into all that, let’s take a look at what Exum was texting his friends in the aftermath of the shooting.
From CNN:
As the case grasped the attention of national media and the public, Exum sent an article from The Guardian on October 7 to a group of other agents, which quoted Parente saying Martinez had “seven holes in her body from five shots from this agent.”
“Read it. 5 shots, 7 holes,” Exum said in the next text.
When Parente pressed him on what he meant, Exum responded he was a firearms instructor. He said, “I take pride in my shooting skills.”
Another message to the group read, “I have a MOF amendment to add to my story. I fired 5 rounds, and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.”
Exum explained to the judge MOF is a “Miserable Old F**ker” who is always trying to one up someone wherever possible.
It’s unclear what exactly he was responding to because the text conversations were redacted when presented to the court.
When asked to explain the text, Exum said, “That means illegal actions have legal consequences.”
Exum defended his use of force against Martinez, saying his life was at risk and “I did what I had to do.”
Mind you, Parente has previously claimed that video footage would show Exum shouting, “Do something, b—h” at Martinez before shooting her. Of course, whatever footage the attorney claims to have isn’t likely to be bodycam footage, as court records show that while all of the Border Patrol agents out on the street that day were equipped with body-worn cameras, only three of them had their cameras activated at the time of the shooting. It’s unclear if Exum was one of the three.
Anyway, later during the court hearing, Exum told U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis that “agents consider ‘transferred intent’ when deciding whether to use force, meaning, for example, whatever was done to an agent’s vehicle is considered as intent to do the same to the agent. The agent’s responding use of force needed to be proportionate,” CNN reported.
“This incident is so unlike anything we have trained for,” Exum said, claiming the whole incident was like something one might see in “cartel-controlled” areas of the world.
That’s an odd way to describe a situation in which no drugs were present, and the only observable weapon was that carried by agents, including the one Exum used to shoot Martinez. In fact, as we previously reported, DHS initially claimed agents were surrounded by a “convoy” of “10 cars” and that one driver, presumably Martinez, was armed with a semi-automatic weapon. However, while Martinez was in possession of a firearm she had a legal license to carry, police audio confirmed the gun stayed in her purse throughout the entire incident, and witnesses also said they never saw her gun.
Witnesses also denied that the agents were “boxed in” by a convoy that included nine other cars. Parente has claimed it was actually Exum’s vehicle that rammed Martinez’s, not the other way around, which brings us to the potential destruction of evidence on the part of Border Patrol.
More from CNN:
US District Judge Georgia Alexakis expressed skepticism Wednesday over why the cars of the two drivers charged in the case – Martinez and Ruiz – have been kept in Chicago as evidence, while the Border Patrol agent’s car was released and allowed to travel normally.
“What gives me great pause is the fact the cars have been treated differently,” Alexakis said.
Government attorneys defended federal agents’ decisions, saying the FBI had preserved any evidence they believed was relevant before releasing the car back onto the street.
On the day of the crash, the FBI collected pictures of the car’s exterior, paint samples and other evidence, according to an affidavit filed by the Justice Department. The vehicle was given back to Exum that evening, and he was not told to preserve the car in any way, he said.
For the next three days, Exum drove the car around Chicago as he finished his rotation in the city, according to the affidavit. He also met with the FBI and US Attorney’s Office, and data was downloaded from his car, he said.
On October 8 – four days after the crash – he drove the SUV back to Maine and parked it in a secure Border Patrol garage. There, a mechanic began repairs on the car, but was ordered to stop because of the ongoing court arguments over the car.
About a week after returning to Maine, Exum said an FBI agent called and said they may need to retrieve the car, the agent said. Though Exum initially told the FBI he did not believe any work had been done to the car, he later found out a mechanic had buffed scuff marks off of it.
The confusion — which, from an objective standpoint, really makes Border Patrol officials look like they’re running an amateur hour operation — seems to have resulted in a lot of passing of the buck, with Exum saying he sent an email to his chain of command that his vehicle may have evidentiary value, and it was not to be worked on, and his supervisor saying he approved the mechanic work, but he only did so because he wasn’t instructed otherwise.
“If they needed it as evidence, I did not think they would have released it from the investigation, had you drive three days all the way back to Maine, possibly destroying some of that evidence along the way, if they still needed it,” the supervisor wrote in an email sent to Exum on Oct. 17 and shown in court.
Judge Alexakis didn’t appear to be buying any of it, noting that Border Patrol must have known the vehicle could be exculpatory evidence; otherwise, it would not have gone through the trouble to preserve records on the car. In fact, Alexakis had ordered Border Patrol to return the SUV to Chicago on a flat-bed truck and directed that no alterations were to be made before the defense had a chance to examine it.
The vehicle wasn’t supposed to so much as be run through a carwash before that time, the judge ordered. Meanwhile, Parente claims he and his experts were not allowed to give the SUV a full examination upon its return. He said Wednesday that they were only allowed to inspect it from no more than two feet away, and without touching it, which, obviously, wouldn’t be much of an examination at all.
The judge also questioned the government on other discrepancies regarding the case, noting that the Justice Department initially claimed the SUV was Exum’s “personal vehicle,” then said in a court filing that it was actually part of the Border Patrol fleet. She also noted that the government has given at least two different accounts of who permitted Exum to drive the vehicle to Maine.
“The fact that these discrepancies are popping up causes me to question the narrative being put forward,” she said.
The judge also didn’t seem to buy the government’s excuse that officials were working under a tight time frame to relay accurate information to the court, saying, “The compressed time frame is a time frame of their own making.”
If there’s anything to take away from this story so far, it’s that the police be lying, and their government handlers are no different.
SEE ALSO:
ICE Agents Drag Daycare Teacher From Chicago School
Elected Officials Accosted By ICE In Chicago
ICE Agents Cuff, Arrest WGN Employee They Say Assaulted Them
Federal Judge Places Restrictions On ICE Arrests In Chicago
The People Of Chicago Are Pushing Back Against ICE
Chicago Residents Continue To Fight Back Against ICE Agents
