Bodycam Twist Upends Latest ICE Shooting

A Texas grand jury ruled the 2025 shooting death of Ruben Ray Martinez a justifiable homicide — but body camera footage released nearly a year later tells a more complicated story.

Story Snapshot

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed 23-year-old U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez in South Padre Island, Texas, in March 2025.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Martinez intentionally drove his car at agents; a Cameron County grand jury ruled the shooting justified.
Body camera footage released nearly a year later appears to show the vehicle braking, not accelerating, when shots were fired.
The only eyewitness passenger died in a car crash four days before he was set to testify to the grand jury.

What ICE and DHS Say Happened

On March 15, 2025, ICE agents approached a vehicle in South Padre Island, Texas, during what officials described as a targeted enforcement operation. Agent Jack Stevens reported smelling marijuana from the driver’s side window. DHS says Martinez then intentionally drove his car toward an agent, striking him in the knee. The agent fired what DHS called “defensive shots.” Martinez died at the scene. A Cameron County grand jury reviewed the evidence and ruled the shooting a justifiable homicide.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told CBS News the Texas Rangers conducted an independent investigation and found no criminal wrongdoing by the agent. Lyons said body camera footage from multiple angles showed Martinez “rolling toward an officer’s location” while holding a bottle of Crown Royal whiskey. Toxicology results showed Martinez had a blood alcohol level of 0.12 and THC in his system at the time of the shooting. The grand jury had all of that before reaching its decision.

What the Video and Witnesses Suggest

CBS News obtained body camera footage and reported that it appears to show Martinez’s vehicle stationary or moving at very low speed, with brake lights on, when the gunshots were fired. Family attorneys Charles Stam and Alex Stamm say the video confirms the car was barely moving and no officer was standing in front of it or on the hood. ABC News also reviewed footage showing the vehicle approaching slowly, not accelerating at a high rate.

The only passenger in the car, Joshua Orta, gave a written statement saying Martinez did not hit anyone and was not trying to run over agents. Orta said Martinez turned the wheel left, the car moved slightly, and no one was struck. Orta was set to testify before the grand jury. He died in a fiery car crash four days before that scheduled testimony. Authorities say they never formally interviewed him before his death.

Eleven Months of Silence Raised Hard Questions

The public did not learn about this shooting for nearly 11 months. Newsweek broke the story in February 2026. DHS and ICE made no public announcement after the March 2025 incident. The family’s attorneys say they were denied access to video evidence for months despite repeated requests. That kind of delay does real damage to public trust, and it is hard to argue otherwise. Transparency after a use-of-force incident is not optional — it is what separates accountable law enforcement from something far less credible.

A man identified as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo has been killed by ICE officers in Texas, marking another fatal shooting since President Trump took office. Authorities are investigating the incident. 🚨

— Tison alpha news (@MarketAlphaHQ) July 8, 2026

Lawmakers asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to open an independent investigation. The DOJ declined. Civil rights attorney Greg Krikorian called the investigation “botched” and “deliberately indifferent.” Those are strong words, but the 11-month silence and the death of the sole witness before testimony give that criticism some weight, regardless of where one stands on immigration enforcement policy.

A Pattern That Keeps Repeating Itself

This case does not exist in a vacuum. From 2015 to 2021, ICE agents were involved in at least 59 shootings, 23 of them fatal, with no documented case of an officer facing criminal accountability. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, DHS officers shot 14 people, killing three U.S. citizens. In several of those cases, officials claimed drivers tried to run agents over. Video in multiple incidents told a different story. The “vehicle as weapon” justification is appearing with enough frequency that it deserves serious, consistent scrutiny — not reflexive dismissal, but not automatic acceptance either.

What This Case Still Needs

No independent forensic reconstruction of the vehicle’s speed and path at the moment of the shooting has been done. The full, unredacted Texas Rangers report has not been released publicly. The medical examiner’s documentation of the agent’s alleged knee injury has not been made available. Until those pieces exist, the grand jury’s ruling stands as the legal verdict — but the factual record remains genuinely incomplete. That gap matters, especially when the person who died was an American citizen and the only witness who could speak to what he saw is now also dead.