Judge scolds Trump administration in hearing on Marimar Martinez Border Patrol shooting bodycam video release

A judge scolded lawyers for the Trump administration and gave them until Monday to respond to Marimar Martinez's demand to release bodycam video of her being shot by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent in Chicago during Operation Midway Blitz. 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security claimed Martinez was in a car that blocked Border Patrol agents near 39th and Kedzie in the city's Brighton Park neighborhood last October. They accused her of ramming her car into federal agents before one of them shot her five times while she was still inside the vehicle. 

But nearly two months later, federal prosecutors dropped criminal charges that had been filed against her, and a judge dismissed them with prejudice, which prevents the government from filing them against her again. 

Monday, Martinez's attorneys filed a motion to force the release of body camera footage of the incident, citing the recent "executions" of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis. 

Martinez's lawyer argued in the eight-page filing that evidence in Martinez's case should be made public to shed light on how DHS "responds in cases where their agents use deadly force against U.S. citizens," noting the Trump administration has continued to describe her as a "domestic terrorist" who rammed agents even after the criminal case against her was dropped. 

In court Thursday, the judge appeared frustrated with the government's lawyers' continued delays after they asked for a week to respond in writing to the motion. 

"I'm not giving you a week," she told them, telling them she needed their response to be specific about the "sensitive materials" they claim are on the body camera video that would justify it being kept from the public. She gave them until the end of Monday to respond. 

She also criticized the administration's attorneys for claiming the video cannot be released because it is part of an "ongoing investigation." 

"If the government is going to rely on an ongoing investigation, I'm going to need a lot of detail about that ongoing investigation," she told them. That included, she said, what specific material needs to remain under seal. 

Martinez's attorneys said she was "angry" that she could not be in court Thursday, but she was not able to get time off from her job to attend the hearing. They said the government still has Martinez's car in their custody, and while they continue to say there's an ongoing criminal investigation, "they say one thing and they don't do anything." 

Martinez's attorneys also said the bodycam video is of national interest, considering what is happening in Minneapolis. 

"She is watching this," her attorneys said, speaking of the deaths of Good and Pretti, knowing that she could have suffered the same fate. "By surviving, she was entitled to something that the Good family and the Pretti family were not entitled to." 

They argued that, as a U.S. citizen, Maritnez feels the video is a matter of public interest, because it can disprove the claims the government has made about the victims of these shootings, including Martinez herself, being "domestic terrorists." 

The administration's attorneys that information is already out there, but the judge argued that it's "not the same as releasing the video and allowing people to make their own opinion." 

The judge told the court she finds they are in "an unusual situation" in which the government made statements about Martinez, a defendant who is assumed innocent until proven guilty. 

"Think long and hard about what I've said today," she warned them at the end of the hearing. 

The next hearing on the response from the government, due Monday, is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 4.