Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Federal prosecutors say the public release of text messages sent by the Border Patrol agent who shot Chicago’s Marimar Martinez last fall could only serve one purpose: to “sully” his reputation.

But the Trump administration has shown “zero concern about the sullying of Ms. Martinez’s reputation,” a federal judge pointed out Friday.

That’s partly why U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis said Martinez will be allowed to share the text messages with the public — as long as all names are redacted except for Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum’s.

He shot Martinez five times on Oct. 4 on Chicago’s Southwest Side.

“[Marimar Martinez] is a United States citizen,” Alexakis said. “She’s a resident of this district. And under our legal system — it bears repeating — she is presumed innocent of any offense of which she has not been convicted.”

The judge added that, “Agent Exum’s text messages provide insight into his perspective of the shooting. They bear on his credibility. They provide insight into how others within [Homeland Security] leadership and within other government entities responded to the shooting.”

The messages in question were between Exum and his family and colleagues. They came into Martinez’s possession during the exchange of evidence in her failed prosecution and could be released as early as Monday, her attorneys say. In one text message that’s already been released, Exum seemed to brag about his marksmanship.

“I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes,” he allegedly wrote. “Put that in your book boys.”

Martinez was born in Chicago and works as a teacher’s assistant at a Montessori school. She is taking an increasingly prominent role in resisting the Trump administration’s deportation campaign, particularly since last month’s shooting deaths of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti by immigration officers in Minneapolis.

Martinez told the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ this week that she’s been afforded an opportunity that Good and Pretti never had. She then traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak in a public forum to Democratic members of Congress. Her attorney, Christopher Parente, says she plans to attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address later this month. [Continue reading…]