By Renee Hickman
CHICAGO (Reuters) -A federal agent who shot a Chicago woman multiple times after he said she struck his vehicle with her own bragged about his shooting skills in text messages with other agents, according to records presented on Wednesday at a hearing against the woman.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent Charles Exum shot U.S. citizen Marimar Martinez, who was warning others about immigration enforcement agents in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood, five times on October 4, after their cars collided.
Martinez said the federal agent’s vehicle rammed her car.
Federal prosecutors said the shooting was an act of self-defense.
Martinez was indicted on October 10, along with another man, Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, on federal charges of impeding a federal officer with a deadly weapon – Martinez’s car. Both were released on bond and attended Wednesday’s hearing.
Records presented at the hearing showed that in a group Signal chat with other agents, which Exum described as a support group, he wrote in part: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.”
In a message to another recipient, Exum sent a news article about the event followed by the message: “Read it. 5 shots, 7 holes.”
When Christopher Parente, an attorney for Martinez, asked Exum what he meant by those messages, he responded: “I’m a firearms instructor and I take pride in my shooting skills.”
QUESTIONS OVER REPAIRS TO AGENT’S VEHICLE
Exum testified about driving his vehicle to Maine after the incident, where repairs were made by a CBP mechanic before the defendants could examine the vehicle.
In a response to Martinez’s motion for a hearing regarding destruction of evidence, the government said that after the shooting the FBI took photos of Exum’s vehicle, a government-issued Chevy Tahoe, and paint samples of the damaged areas at the FBI’s Chicago office. It was then released back to Exum that evening without any special instructions or restrictions, according to prosecutors.
Exum said he drove the Tahoe over 1,000 miles (600 km) back to Calais, Maine, where he is assigned to a Customs and Border Protection station, from October 8 to 10, parking it at a CBP facility there. He said he later found out that repairs, including buffing out “black marks,” were made to the vehicle.
The government presented an exhibit of an email from Exum’s supervisor Kevin Kellenberger, stating that he had approved the repairs.
But in a cross-examination, Parente noted that documentation from an FBI interview with Exum contradicted that version of events, with Exum telling agents he had asked for the repairs.
When asked about the disparity between the FBI’s account and his own, Exum said the agent who interviewed him had “made a mistake.”
Lawyers for Martinez and Ruiz questioned Exum on Wednesday about whether his experience at the agency should have indicated to him the possible value of the vehicle as evidence and the need to preserve it.
Exum responded that because the vehicle was released to him by the FBI, he believed it was no longer necessary to preserve it as evidence.
After the collision and shooting on October 4, a crowd of protesters gathered around the scene on the southwest side of Chicago, and agents responded by deploying tear gas.
The incident came amid an ongoing immigration enforcement surge in the Chicago area directed by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump that began in September and the administration termed “Operation Midway Blitz.”
(Reporting by Renee Hickman in Chicago; Editing by Emily Schmall and Michael Perry)
