Chicago Latina Shot by Border Patrol Survives, Lawyers Up
“La Maggie” Martinez survived a federal shooting in Chicago. Now her attorney says body-cam footage shows the agents provoked it. The public deserves to see the tape.
COLUMN — On Saturday, federal agents shot Marimar “La Maggie” Martinez five to seven times in Brighton Park. Yesterday, she walked out of the hospital—bandaged, limping, but alive—flanked by her lawyer, Christopher Parente, and a crowd chanting her name.
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That image—a Latina activist standing upright after federal bullets tore through her car and body—belongs to a long ledger of American overreach. CBP called it an “ambush.” Her community calls it what it looks like: an execution that failed.
The government’s story crumbles on contact. Prosecutors claim Martinez rammed a Border Patrol SUV and charged an agent. But Parente told a federal judge he has the body-cam footage, and it shows the opposite: a CBP agent taunting her—“Do something, bitch”—before steering his unmarked vehicle into hers and opening fire. Seven bullets later, Martinez drove herself a mile to a repair shop for help.
That footage exists. It’s time we all see it.
Because when federal agents shoot a U.S. citizen and the Department of Homeland Security hides the video behind “ongoing investigation” boilerplate, it’s not law enforcement—it’s propaganda. Chicago has seen this movie before. Ask the families of Laquan McDonald or Adam Toledo what happens when police footage stays sealed.
The feds want this one buried under jargon and indictments: “assaulting, impeding, interfering.” Twenty-year felony talk meant to chill anyone who dares to tail a government convoy through a neighborhood sick of raids. Brighton Park has been crawling with ICE and CBP since Trump ordered “sanctuary saturation” operations last month—1,000 arrests in two weeks, unmarked vans, kids snatched without warrants.
La Maggie was one of the few who followed them, documenting what looked like an occupation. For that, she was shot.
There’s a reason they don’t want the footage out. The video, by Parente’s account, doesn’t show a militant activist with a gun; it shows an agent losing his temper, cursing at a woman through a windshield, then firing point-blank. That’s not self-defense—it’s vengeance with a badge.
Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, just declared all city property “ICE-free zones.” He should go further: demand that DHS release the full, unedited body-cam footage. Gov. JB Pritzker said he wants “facts over propaganda.” The fact is, the tape exists. The propaganda is that we can’t handle the truth.
CBP wants the world to forget that the people they police are citizens too. Martinez was born here. She voted here. And yet federal agents stalked her streets like a foreign army.
Four days ago, they tried to write her out of the story. Yesterday, she walked back in.
Release the tape.
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This is a powerful article. If they are telling the truth they should want that tape shown.
It was only a matter of time before one of the thugs did this. Release the Epstein files, the Homan bribe tape, and this shooting! If it disproved the lady’s claim, you can bet it would be all over the news!