Border patrol chief praised federal agent who shot US citizen in Chicago

Newly released evidence has shown that Gregory Bovino, a border patrol chief who was the face of the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts until last month, praised a federal agent who shot a Chicago woman during an immigration crackdown last year. Marimar Martinez, a US citizen, was shot five times by a border patrol agent in October while in her vehicle. She was charged with a felony after officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused her of trying to ram agents with her vehicle. But the case was abruptly dismissed after video evidence emerged showing that an agent had steered his vehicle into Martinez’s car.Lawyers for Martinez have pushed to make evidence in the dismissed criminal case public, saying they were especially motivated to do so after a federal agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis under similar circumstances.The new evidence – which includes emails, text messages and videos – was released this week after a US district judge, Georgia Alexakis, lifted a protective order. Federal prosecutors had argued the documents could “further sully” reputation of the agent who shot Martinez.“I don’t know why the United States government has expressed zero concern for the sullying of Ms Martinez’s reputation,” Alexakis countered.The border patrol agent who shot Martinez, Charles Exum, was not wearing his body camera during the incident, according to Martinez’s lawyer, but body camera video recorded by another agent and released on Tuesday showed the moments that led up to the shooting from inside Exum’s vehicle. After Exum gets out of the car, the sound of five shots being fired can be heard on the video.Text messages, meanwhile, show Bovino sending encouragement to Exum after the shooting.“In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!” Bovino wrote to Exum on 4 October, hours after Martinez was shot, in an email urging him to put off his retirement.Another text exchange highlighted by lawyers for Martinez showed that when a fellow agent asked Exum if his superiors were being “supportive” after the shooting, Exum replied: “Big time. Everyone has been including Chief Bovino, Chief Banks, Sec Noem and El Jefe himself … according to Bovino.”On the day Martinez was shot, she had followed agents’ vehicle and honked her horn to warn others of the presence of immigration agents. Body camera footage showed agents with weapons drawn preparing to rush out of their vehicle. “It’s time to get aggressive and get the (expletive) out,” one agent could be heard saying.Bovino’s belligerent persona, in frequent Fox News appearances, on social media and while leading operations in front of cameras deployed to produce propaganda for the Trump administration, had earned him a starring role in the made-for-TV crackdown until last month, when he was caught lying about Alex Pretti, the VA nurse who was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis despite posing them no threat.The shooting of Martinez came during the height of the Chicago-area crackdown last year, during which a federal judge concluded that Bovino had lied to her about having been struck by a rock during a confrontation with protesters in the city. The government unsuccessfully fought the release of the documents on the shooting, including an email from Bovino, who led enforcement operations nationwide until video evidence showed he had lied when he said Pretti “approached law enforcement with a weapon”, “violently resisted” and wanted to “massacre law enforcement”. In one agent group text, others congratulated Exum as Bovino had, calling him a “legend” and offering to buy him beers. In another text exchange made public when Martinez testified in Congress last week, another agent sent Exum a Guardian report on the shooting in which her lawyer said she had “seven holes in her body from five shots”.“Read it,” Exum replied. “5 shots, 7 holes.”Exum then appeared to brag to colleagues about his shooting skills. “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys,” he wrote.Robert Garcia, a Democratic representative of California, speaks during a forum on use of force by Department of Homeland Security agents, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty ImagesMartinez’s lawyers are pursuing a complaint under a law that permits individuals to sue federal agencies. They outlined instances of DHS lying about Martinez after the shooting, including labeling her a “domestic terrorist” and accusing her of having a history of “doxxing federal agents”. The Montessori school assistant has no criminal record and prosecutors haven’t brought evidence to support either claim. “This is a time where we just cannot trust the words of our federal officials,” Christopher Parente, an attorney, said at a news conference where his office released evidence. That included an agent’s hand-drawn diagram of the scene to allege how Martinez “boxed in” federal agents. It included three vehicles Parente said “don’t exist”.Last week, Martinez offered emotional testimony about her ordeal to Democrats in Congress in which she described her shock at being falsely described as a terrorist.“On Friday I was teaching the young children at the Montessori school and we were singing and dancing and getting ready for spooky season preparing fall activities to do the following week and on Saturday my own government was calling me a ‘domestic terrorist’ and I was in a federal detention center with bullet holes all over my body,” Martinez recalled.The Associated Press contributed reporting