* NBC Chicago…

A pile of evidence related to the shooting of a Chicago woman by an immigration agent in Brighton Park last fall was released Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including text messages sent by the agent in the aftermath.

Judge Georgia N. Alexakis ordered body camera footage, text messages, flock camera footage and other evidence from the shooting be released during a hearing last week.

After a weekend spent making redactions, that evidence was released Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Marimar Martinez, a Chicago woman who was shot in October by Customs and Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum, requested the evidence be released as it would allow her to “defend herself from a regrettable and unyielding tide of misinformation from the federal government regarding her case,” according to court documents.

* CNN…

“Do something, b*tch,” one agent is heard saying, over the sound of repeated honking from outside the vehicle.

“It’s time to get aggressive and get the f**k out, because they’re trying to box us in,” an agent says, seconds before the driver can be seen turning the wheel sharply to the left. The body-cam jostles, the vehicle stops and agents are heard saying, “we’ve been struck,” apparently reporting the collision to dispatch.

The driver exits the vehicle, and gunshots are heard roughly two seconds later. The agent wearing the body camera gets out of the vehicle seconds later, though he does not appear to face the direction of Martinez’s car.

Before the footage was released, Martinez’s attorney, Christopher Parente, lamented that while CBP agent Charles Exum had a body camera, he was not wearing it at the time of the shooting.

Click here for the body camera footage.

* Tribune…

A few minutes after Martínez was shot, the agent wearing the body camera explained to another agent on the scene: “(The) vehicle struck us twice, then when we stepped out, she floored it and tried to run him over.” […]

Toward the end of the video, a Chicago police squad car pulls up and a white-shirted supervisor gets out, asking if the agents are OK and if they had a supervisor on the scene. He can be seen speaking with federal personnel a few feet down the sidewalk as the agent gives his version of events to a colleague:

“We were fine all the way up until about a block from here,” he said. “And we were like, nothing too crazy, we don’t want to cause an accident. We’re just going to roll to 55 and lose them on the highway.”

The agent said the other motorists seemed to be trying to box them in, “then the girls behind us got brave, tried to box us in from the left, a pickup truck.”

“One up front, tried to get us from the front. And we were like, ‘No, we’ve got to roll,’ so we started moving to try to get out,” the agent said. “They got aggressive on both sides. And then a chick was swerving like she was trying to hit us already until she finally struck us … she tried to run him down.”

* Sun-Times…

Marimar Martinez’s lawyers say Border Patrol agents lied to justify shooting her five times last fall, in part by claiming they were “boxed in” by a convoy of vehicles that included Martinez’s on Chicago’s Southwest Side.

Attorneys pointed Wednesday to a diagram drawn by agents of the shooting scene, which was among the records released earlier this week by federal prosecutors. The drawing depicts three vehicles ahead of the agents’ Chevrolet Tahoe, in addition to Martinez’s Nissan Rogue and a GMC Envoy driven by another man who faced criminal charges.

Video shows the three cars depicted ahead of the Border Patrol Tahoe “don’t exist,” attorney Christopher Parente said.

“They drew those cars to justify a bad shooting,” he insisted during a press conference in the Loop.

* WTTW…

Martinez and her attorneys say they plan to file a federal claim Wednesday ahead of an eventual civil lawsuit against Exum.

Parente added that he believed federal prosecutors in Indiana have launched a criminal investigation into Exum for the shooting.

That case cannot be prosecuted by prosecutors in Illinois because Exum acted as their witness in the Martinez case.

Parente on Wednesday said that evidence shows Exum also lied to federal investigators when he claimed that he fired five shots through Martinez’s windshield as she drove directly at him. According to Parente, the government’s own evidence shows one bullet hit the rear passenger window and another bullet traveled from the rear of the vehicle to the front.

* More…

* Tribune | Another Operation Midway Blitz protest case evaporates in federal court: Prosecutors moved to drop the charges Feb. 5, according to court records. Erik Meier had been due back in court for a hearing Wednesday morning, with a trial scheduled for March 9, records show. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez’s Tuesday order to dismiss the misdemeanor case against Meier without prejudice makes him at least the 17th defendant swept up and charged in protests around Operation Midway Blitz last fall to later be cleared. Meier’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

* Tribune | Marimar Martínez lawyers say officials ‘created a culture of violence’ among agents: That process would begin Wednesday with the filing of a federal torts claim with the Department of Justice. If there’s no response, Martínez’s attorneys will file a federal civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court. Attorney Michael Gallagher said they would be asking for “tens of millions of dollars” in damages.

* Mother Jones | DHS Shot Her and Called Her a “Terrorist.” New Videos Show Something Different: Martinez’s shooting caused nationwide outrage, particularly after it was revealed that Exum had bragged about shooting Martinez. “Read it,” he wrote in one message after being sent an article about the incident. “5 shots, 7 holes.” He continued: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.”

* NYT | Top border official praised agent who shot Chicago woman: On the day of the shooting, Mr. Exum wrote in a text message that “she was trying to run me over.” “I did what I had to do to save my life,” he later testified, also telling the court that “the group of agents that I’m friends with” texted as a part of “relieving stress.” The newly released texts show Mr. Exum’s messages quickly became filled with backslapping and boasts after the shooting. In one text, a colleague called him “a legend among agents.” “Damn!!” wrote another. “I leave for a few weeks and it turns into Iraq.”