US citizen who was shot by immigration agent in Chicago files lawsuit alleging he fired from behind

CHICAGO (AP) — An American citizen shot by a Customs and Border Protection agent one year ago during a sweeping immigration crackdown in Chicago filed a lawsuit against the federal government on Monday, alleging the agent lied about the shooting and fired into her vehicle from behind.

Federal prosecutors initially accused Marimar Martinez, then 30, of using her vehicle to strike and box in agent Charles Exum’s SUV on Chicago’s southwest side on Oct. 4, 2025, during “Operation Midway Blitz.” Exum then exited his car and opened fire, leaving Martinez with seven gunshot wounds.

In the month after the shooting, prosecutors filed to dismiss the charges in a dramatic reversal of the closely watched case in the nation's third-largest city.

Her lawyers said Monday that they commissioned an expert to analyze bullet trajectories and her injuries and determined Exum wasn't in the path of her car when he opened fire. They said he had walked several feet toward her car, contrary to statements he made to the FBI, and fired off five shots in less than a second, the last from the rear side of her vehicle.

“Charles Exum told the FBI agent on that day, within hours of the shooting, that Marimar was driving her car directly at him, that he shot her five times through the windshield, and that he ceased firing once he was no longer in the path of the vehicle. Those are three objective lies that you’ll see here today,” said one of her attorneys, Chris Parente.

Parente said there were only three bullet holes in Martinez’ windshield on the right passenger side, which indicated Martinez wasn't driving toward the agent. He said the fourth shot was fired through the front passenger side window, adding another bullet hole in the back of Martinez’ car seat showed the agent fired the fifth shot from behind her.

“In what world can a U.S. law enforcement officer stand behind a car and fire his Glock service weapon through the rear passenger window at a young woman who’s crouched over the steering wheel?” Parente said.

CBP said in a statement to The Associated Press in response to the suit that Exum had been placed on administrative leave. Use-of-force incidents are “thoroughly investigated, reviewed, and presented” to an independent board, it added.

Exum is not a defendant in the lawsuit against the federal government, which was filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act and does not allow for lawsuits against individual agents. It was not known where Exum could be reached.

Body-worn camera footage from another agent in Exum's vehicle before the shooting captured the agents saying it was “time to get aggressive” and making other profanity-laced comments encouraging violence, according to the complaint.

The FBI arrested Martinez, taking her out of the hospital just hours after the shooting when she was “wheelchair bound and her bullet holes were leaking blood through her bandages,” according to the lawsuit. A judge ordered her release two days after her arrest.

Messages released by Martinez’ attorneys in February showed that former head of Border Patrol Greg Bovino had praised Exum for his “excellent service in Chicago” after the shooting. Other messages they released showed agents in a group chat congratulating Exum and calling him a “legend.”

Martinez was one several people shot in their cars by federal agents during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. An immigration agent shot a Venezuelan delivery driver in his car in Austin, Texas, last month, and another shot a Colombian driver in Biddeford, Maine, in July. The Trump administration has at times justified such shootings as self-defense against people allegedly weaponizing their vehicles.

Martinez appeared with her attorneys at a news conference Monday, saying the various shootings spurred her to file suit.

“If I don’t, then who else, you know? Look at what happened to Renee and all these victims,” she said, referring to Renee Good, a woman shot dead in her vehicle by a federal agent in Minneapolis in January.

“What’s happening is not normal. We shouldn’t stay here and normalize what’s happening,” she said.

Mayes-Osterman is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

FIEL - Demonstrators march at a protest opposing "Operation Midway Blitz" and the presence of ICE, on Sept. 9, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley, File)

Attorney Michael Gallagher, right, talks to media as attorney Christopher Parente, center, and Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman who was shot by a Border Patrol agent last year, listens to him at a press conference Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman who was shot by a Border Patrol agent last year, listens to attorney Michael Gallagher at a press conference Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman who was shot by a Border Patrol agent last year, listens to attorney Michael Gallagher at a press conference Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman who was shot by a Border Patrol agent last year, listens to attorney Christopher Parente at a press conference Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Attorney Christopher Parente, right, talks to media as Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman who was shot by a Border Patrol agent last year, listens to him at a press conference Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman who was shot by a Border Patrol agent last year, listens to attorney Christopher Parente at a press conference Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

STANFORD, Calif. (AP) — Dr. Karl Deisseroth spent hours fielding congratulatory calls after learning early Monday that he had won a Nobel Prize for medicine for helping to open a new field of brain science called optogenetics.

But it wasn't long before the California scientist asked for a break from all the attention for a more ordinary task: He needed to make school lunches for his children, who were asleep in the family home in Stanford, where their father had been speaking in the middle of the night with journalists and well-wishers.

Deisseroth, 54, shared this year’s medicine prize with two researchers in Germany for their work in optogenetics, a field that combines light with genes to switch on and off neurons in living brains.

A self-described night owl, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and Stanford University professor often works past midnight. After reviewing papers and emailing his students, he said he had just gone to lie down when he got the call from the Nobel Assembly in Stockholm.

“I almost felt as if I’d lost the power of forming words,” he told The Associated Press, “but I recovered after a minute or two.”

He regained speech quickly enough for remote interviews with AP science reporters. Speedy emails with the Stanford communications staff had helped put them in touch.

“No real sleep was achieved,” he said an hour after the announcement.

As the science reporters chatted with Deisseroth over the phone and Zoom, an AP photographer and videographer raced to his home in Stanford.

The photographer arrived around 3:30 a.m. to find Halloween decorations outside the home but just one light on inside. He was worried he had the wrong house before mustering the courage to knock on the door.

Dr. Michelle Monje-Deisseroth, the scientist's wife, answered and ushered the photographer into their home, where the Nobel winner was taking calls from the couch.

Monje-Deisseroth, an HHMI investigator and Stanford pediatric neuro-oncologist, was at his side when she wasn’t making coffee for the Stanford communications staff who had joined the celebration. Deisseroth was surprised to hear his work had been honored with a Nobel Prize, he told the AP, but his wife was not.

Deisseroth recounted the research he conducted with fellow Nobel winners Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel, and its real-world impact.

“For me, I’m a physician-scientist. I am a psychiatrist. I care about patients and my patients who have autism, who have depression,” he said. “I care about the hope that this brings. But I’m also a basic scientist, and I care about understanding this amazing organ, the brain, and how it works and how it integrates and computes and delivers all the things that make us human.”

As Deisseroth wrapped up the interviews, he told the Stanford staff he needed an hourlong break beginning at 6:30 a.m. His kids would be waking up, he said, and they would need lunches before leaving for school.

When one of the Stanford representatives wondered if the neighbors would mind all the late-night commotion, Monje-Deisseroth shrugged it off.

They live in faculty housing, she said. There are a lot of Nobels in the neighborhood.

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Ramakrishnan reported from New York. Associated Press writers Stefanie Dazio in Berlin and Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.

AP Nobel Prizes: https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes

Karl Deisseroth, one of the three recipients of the 2026 Nobel Prize in medicine, poses for a photo on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Stanford, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Karl Deisseroth, one of the three recipients of the 2026 Nobel Prize in medicine, talks on his mobile at home on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Stanford, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Karl Deisseroth, one of the three recipients of the 2026 Nobel Prize in medicine, smiles at home on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Stanford, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Karl Deisseroth, one of the three recipients of the 2026 Nobel Prize in medicine, talks to his wife Michelle Monje-Deisseroth at home Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Stanford, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)