![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/2025_11_20_borderpatrol-e1763665066928.jpg?w=990\")
<\/p>\nBorder Patrol agents in Chicago last month.<\/span>Nam Y. Huh\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Remember the horrifying<\/span> text messages that caught a Border Patrol agent bragging<\/a> about shooting someone in Chicago last month?<\/p>\n Well, it seems that those texts\u2014and the looming release of even more<\/em> potentially damaging messages\u2014are now prompting federal prosecutors to move to dismiss their charges against the woman, who prosecutors had accused of assaulting an officer.<\/p>\n A bit of a refresher on the case: On October 4, Charles Exum, a supervisory Border Patrol agent, shot Marimar Martinez, a US citizen, multiple times and accused Martinez of ramming her car into his vehicle. Martinez was part of what the government alleged was \u201ca convoy of civilian vehicles\u201d that had been trailing the federal agents during their immigration enforcement operations. A lawyer for the government\u00a0said\u00a0Martinez had been broadcasting the incident on Facebook Live for a couple of minutes before the shooting.<\/p>\n As I wrote<\/a> earlier this month:<\/p>\n When Exum got out of the car, Martinez allegedly drove her car \u201cat\u201d him, and the officer then fired five shots at her.<\/p>\n Martinez has pled not guilty, and contests the government\u2019s allegations. In her account, Exum sideswiped her car, and fired the five gunshots at her \u201cwithin two seconds\u201d of exiting his vehicle, according to court documents filed by her lawyer. After driving about a mile from the scene, Martinez took an ambulance to a hospital, where she was treated for gunshot wounds and later arrested. She has been released from custody on $10,000 bond; a jury trial is scheduled for February.<\/p>\n This all occurred as federal officials were conducting immigration raids in the Chicago area, as part of an action\u00a0dubbed<\/a>\u00a0\u201cOperation Midway Blitz\u201d by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Soon after, court documents revealed Exum expressing pride over the shooting. As I wrote:<\/p>\n In one exchange, the agent sent an article\u00a0from\u00a0the Guardian<\/em><\/a>\u00a0describing the shooting, adding, \u201c5 shots, 7 holes.\u201d In another, he clarified that he was explaining his pride of his abilities as a marksman: \u201cI fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.\u201d (Reuters\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that, when asked about these messages at a court hearing on Wednesday, Exum said: \u201cI\u2019m a firearms instructor and I take pride in my shooting skills.\u201d)<\/p>\n In other messages, Exum wrote: \u201cI\u2019m up for another round of \u2018fuck around and find out\u2019\u201d and \u201cSweet. My fifteen mins of fame. Lmao.\u201d<\/p>\n According to CNN,<\/a>\u00a0Martinez\u2019s lawyer, Christopher Perente, asked Exum about another text, in which Exum wrote about the incident: \u201cI have a MOF amendment to add to my story.\u201d\u00a0Exum explained \u2018MOF\u2019 meant \u201cmiserable old fucker,\u201d a term meant to refer to someone trying to one-up others, per CNN\u2019s account. Exum explained the text by saying: \u201cThat means illegal actions have legal consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Following that explosive hearing, a federal court directed the government\u2019s lawyers to provide the agent\u2019s unredacted texts to the judge for her private review. Then, on Monday, the judge told the government\u2019s lawyers they needed to provide the texts to Martinez\u2019s lawyer, which would wind up making them public. But rather than do that, the government on Thursday moved to dismiss the case entirely, just hours before another hearing was scheduled to take place.<\/p>\n So what do those additional <\/strong>texts say? For now, we don\u2019t know. Neither the lawyer representing Martinez nor spokespeople for the Department of Justice and Border Patrol immediately responded to requests for comment from Mother Jones <\/em>on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n But for the government to drop the case entirely, there\u2019s a good chance they are even more embarrassing for Exum than the previous texts were. And they likely add to a disturbing trend our reporting<\/a> has repeatedly<\/a> revealed: The federal agents the government claims are helping the supposedly terrified residents of American cities are, in fact, posing a danger to residents themselves. And sometimes, they\u2019re even bragging about it afterwards.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Border Patrol agents in Chicago last month.Nam Y. Huh\/AP Get your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. Remember the horrifying text messages that caught a Border Patrol agent bragging about shooting someone in Chicago last month? Well, it seems that those texts\u2014and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":308486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[3038,25085,29177,4448,35737,2430,7028,6997,1176,15887,1620],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-308485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-agent","tag-border","tag-charges","tag-drop","tag-feds","tag-jones","tag-mother","tag-patrol","tag-shot","tag-suddenly","tag-woman"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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