Marimar Martinez reflects on ICE shooting one year after Operation Midway Blitz: 'I'm a survivor'

CHICAGO - One year after Operation Midway Blitz began in Chicago, Marimar Martinez is looking back on the day that changed her life. 

In a FOX Chicago exclusive, Tia Ewing speaks with the woman who survived an ICE shooting and is now fighting for accountability.

Marimar Martinez looks back at ICE arrest one year later

The backstory:

A trip down West 39th Street and South Kedzie Avenue last October to donate clothes at a local church turned into much more than that for Marimar Martinez. 

With the start of Operation Midway Blitz a few weeks earlier, she was suddenly thrust into the national spotlight and fearing for her life. 

"I fear not only that, but I did fear for my community. It was more toward my community, because when you come from a family of immigrants, you understand the struggle and the fear. So it was just like, no, like I have my rights. So I'm gonna fight for my communities," Martinez said. 

Martinez, a teacher's assistant, was arrested and charged with forcibly assaulting, impeding and interfering with a federal law enforcement officer. 

Until then, she had been quietly living on Chicago's South Side and working as a teacher's assistant. 

"So I was shot in my arm right here, right here. And then right here on the side of my chest, I have a wound also on my right thigh. I have an entry and exit wound. Then, that one travel to my left leg right here at the bottom. So I have seven holes in my body," Martinez said. 

The Department of Homeland Security says the agent shot Martinez during this incident because they believed she was armed. 

"If you see these wounds, even when I go to my hand therapist, he was amazing. He said, ‘I need to take a picture of this.’ He said, ‘you’re a miracle, you're here for a reason,'" Martinez said. 

The words "second chance" come to mind. 

Marimar told us she does believe she's still here for a reason and it's this.

"I need to bring awareness, I need to bring justice for them and it was heartbreaking. And I was like, overwhelmed because I saw my family go through the pain and I survived, right? And I saw own mother break down, like losing her mind, and I just imagined what their parents like Alex Pretti, Silverio, Rene," she said. 

Silverio Villegas Gonzalez was shot and killed by ICE agents in Franklin Park three weeks before Marimar was shot and survived.

ICE agents say Gonzalez tried to flee during a traffic stop. 

Rene Good and Alex Pretti were both fatally shot, also by ICE agents, three months later in separate incidents in Minneapolis. 

DHS claims Good was targeting an agent with her vehicle and the shooting was in self-defense. 

However, Minnesota officials and other witnesses say shots were fired at the car while Good was driving away. 

Pretti was recording ICE and Border Patrol presence in Minneapolis and attempting to assist a woman when federal agents shot him multiple times, killing him. 

"I just know what their parents are going through because I've seen it with my family and it's something that gave me more strength to speak up, even though I don't want to. I don't because it's hard to relive this pain over and over. I don't wanna talk about this trauma. I don't, but I feel I have a need. This is my purpose to be here and speak out for those that can't," Martinez said. 

Dig deeper:

There was more trauma for Marimar to deal with than just the shooting itself and her injuries. 

"I'm just protecting myself because I don't want to be exposed because there's a lot of judgment, right? Because not a lot people are with me. They're against my actions, right. So I just need a time right now to fully process what happened to me because it's hard. It's been a journey," Martinez said. 

"We have asked them repeatedly to withdraw their allegations that Marimar is a domestic terrorist. There's no basis for that. The U.S. Attorney's Office has dismissed all charges and yet they continue to put out this narrative that she is a domestic terrorist. They will not admit that they made a mistake in this case and they have not yet prosecuted Agent Exum and his colleagues who lie to the FBI, lie to federal prosecutors and they should be held accountable for that," said Martinez's defense attorney Chris Parente. 

Federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Marimar just six weeks after she was indicted. 

Judge Georgia Alexakis granted the government's motion and the charges were dropped. 

"They're coming from places like Maine, from Texas, where they're at the border, which is a very controlled environment. They're not used to being on Kedzie Avenue on a Saturday morning surrounded by Chicago traffic. So these agents did feel ‘boxed in,' but they certainly weren't actually boxed in by any sort of sophisticated or organized group of individuals. They were just in Saturday morning traffic, freak out and shoot a Montessori school teacher on her way to donate clothes," Parente said. 

The agent that shot Marimar and later bragged about it in text messages, according to court records, worked out of a field office in Maine before coming to Chicago for Operation Midway Blitz. 

"I think the key to this case and the reason the government ended up dismissing all charges against Marimar is because we obtained video that they didn't have that proved the agents were lying, right? The agents' story was that they were boxed in, that they couldn't move their vehicle and so they had to get out and then they had shoot Marimar. We obtained video to show that was absolutely false," Parente said. 

What's next:

Since then, Marimar testified in front of the Illinois Accountability Commission as it held an inquiry into federal law enforcement misconduct during Operation Midway Blitz. 

She and her attorney have also filed a Federal Tort Claims Act, laying the groundwork for a federal civil suit against the ICE agent that shot her last fall. 

"I keep saying this. I'm like, I'm not a victim, I am a survivor. We're all survivors," Martinez said.