DHS website still labels Martinez ‘domestic terrorist’ after dropped charges
Marimar Martinez, a Chicago teacher, filed suit against the federal government on Monday seeking damages for being shot five times by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum during an October 2025 enforcement operation in Chicago — more than a year after federal prosecutors dropped assault charges against her with prejudice.
The complaint accuses the government of negligence, battery, assault, false arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution, according to attorneys who announced the filing at a Monday news conference. Martinez is seeking damages in the action.
The shooting occurred Oct. 4, 2025, in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood during Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Operation Midway Blitz. The Department of Homeland Security initially accused Martinez of being the aggressor, saying she “ambushed” law enforcement agents and rammed them with her vehicle. Martinez has said it was Exum who rammed her vehicle and who shot her without provocation.
Federal prosecutors charged Martinez with assault after the shooting and characterized her as a “domestic terrorist.” They later dropped the charges with prejudice, permanently closing the case against her. An Illinois Accountability Commission subsequently found that Exum had no justification in shooting Martinez. The Department of Homeland Security placed Exum on leave earlier this year.
Martinez’s attorney Chris Parente said Monday that the legal team has had no updates on a federal investigation of the shooting. Parente said a crime scene analyst retained by the attorneys produced an analysis showing that Exum shot Martinez while she was turning her car away from him.
“It’s actual, concrete physical evidence and science led by an independent expert that shows the agent lied about where he was, and Marimar has been telling the truth,” Parente said at the press conference.
Attorney Michael Gallagher said the lawsuit is intended to show that the federal government’s account of the shooting cannot stand.
“We need to show them that their lies are done today, that they can’t twist the truth or keep spinning it because that ends,” Gallagher said. “So with this investigation and this kind of analysis, we think we’ve done that.”
Martinez said Monday that she had initially planned to let the matter rest once the charges against her were dropped, but changed her mind after seeing fatalities at the hands of federal agents, including those in Minneapolis earlier this year.
“What’s happening is not normal,” Martinez said. “We shouldn’t sit here and normalize what’s happening. And I’m not gonna sit here.”
“So I won’t stop,” she added. “I have a voice, and I do matter, and I don’t want it to keep happening.”
A press release on DHS’s website continues to describe Martinez as a “domestic terrorist,” even after the charges against her were dropped.