Woman shot by immigration agent after allegedly ramming vehicle indicted on assault charges

A woman shot by an immigration agent after she allegedly rammed his vehicle on Chicago’s Southwest Side last weekend has been indicted by a federal grand jury, part of a flurry of developments Friday in cases involving protests and violence over the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Marimar Martinez, 30, was charged in the two-page indictment made public Friday with single count of using a dangerous weapon to interfere with federal officers in the course of their official duties. Also charged with the same count was Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, 21, who prosecutors say used his SUV to ram the same Border Patrol vehicle.

The filing of the indictment scuttled a preliminary hearing that had been scheduled for Friday afternoon. An arraignment date was not immediately set.

Prosecutors have said both Martinez and Ruiz were part of a convoy of cars that had been following agents on Oct. 4 as they conducted immigration enforcement operations in the Brighton Park neighborhood, and that before the crash and shooting near 39th and Kedzie, Martinez had been broadcasting the pursuit on Facebook Live, “laying on her horn” and “yelling loudly” at the agents.

After both Martinez and Ruiz struck the officers’ vehicle, one agent jumped out and opened fire, hitting Martinez five times. Martinez drove off after the shooting but paramedics discovered her and her vehicle at a repair shop about a mile away, according to a criminal complaint. She was later taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where she was released after being treated for gunshot wounds.

Ruiz also drove away after the collisions, but law enforcement located him and his vehicle at a gas station about a half block away, the complaint stated.

All three agents were equipped with body cameras, but the camera of only one of the passengers was switched on at the time of the incident, according to the complaint.

The body camera footage has not been released publicly. But Martinez’s attorney, Christopher Parente, said in court this week he’d viewed it multiple times and that it showed that just before the shooting, one of the agents was captured saying, “Do something, bitch,” while his hands were on his assault rifle.

While the charges against Martinez and Ruiz will move forward, the cases filed against a handful of protesters arrested in a violent melee with officers at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview two weeks ago continued to fall apart.

On Friday, a federal judge officially accepted a motion from the U.S. attorney’s office to drop charges against Paul Ivery, an Oak Park and River Forest High School cafeteria worker with an intellectual disability who was arrested Sept. 27 during a large-scale protest that saw demonstrators scuffle with agents, who later deployed tear gas and pepper spray on the crowd.

Ivery had been accused of threatening to kill an agent and then resisting arrest. But in court Friday, prosecutors said they’d since received confirmation of Ivery’s diagnosed disability and U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes granted a motion to dismiss the charges.

The development in Ivery’s case followed the dismissal of charges against three other protesters arrested that same day. Earlier this week, Jocelyne Robledo and Ray Collins saw their charges disintegrate after a federal grand jury refused to bring an indictment. A day later, the U.S. attorney’s office dismissed misdemeanor charges against another protester, Hubert Mazur.

That left only one of the five defendants charged, Dana Briggs, 70, an Air Force veteran accused of making contact with an immigration agent’s arm while trying to hand off his cellphone, allegedly “causing pain” to the agent’s wrist.

Briggs had been charged with felony assault, but in court Friday, prosecutors said they have reduced the charge to a misdemeanor based on further review of video footage from the scene.

In a highly unusual move, Fuentes ordered prosecutors to turn over the videos that the Border Patrol agents relied on to swear out the original felony complaint against Briggs.

Briggs, meanwhile, pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor count, and a trial was set for December.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com