Man Fatally Shot Last Year Now Revealed to Have Been Killed by ICE

23-year-old U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez. Credit: (Rachel Reyes via AP)

According to reporting published Friday by The New York Times, 23-year-old U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez was fatally shot by ICE agents in South Texas in March 2025 after allegedly failing to follow commands to exit his vehicle.

Per newly revealed internal ICE documents, Martinez was shot multiple times and killed on South Padre Island, Texas, in the early hours of March 15, 2025.

While the incident was initially reported by local outlets as a law enforcement officer-involved shooting, ICE’s involvement became clear this week as the documents, reviewed by the Times, describe Homeland Security Investigations agents assisting local police with traffic control near a car accident when Martinez approached in a blue Ford.

According to the report, Martinez initially failed to comply with commands to exit his vehicle. Agents then surrounded the car and ordered him out. The documents state that Martinez accelerated, striking a federal agent who landed on the vehicle, prompting another agent to fire multiple shots through the driver’s side window. Martinez was transported to a hospital in Brownsville, where he later died.

The Department of Homeland Security described the shooting as self-defense, saying the agent “fired defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public” after Martinez allegedly “ran over” an agent. The injured officer was later treated for a knee injury and released.

But Martinez’s family disputes that account. His mother, Rachel Reyes, told the Times her son was a “good kid” with no criminal history who had been celebrating his birthday days earlier.

Also in a statement to the Times, the families’ lawyers, Charles Stam and Alex Stamm, emphasized that eyewitness accounts of the incident don’t match the government’s report.

“It is critical that there is a full and fair investigation into why H.S.I. was present at the scene of a traffic collision and why a federal officer shot and killed a U.S. citizen as he was trying to comply with instructions from the local law enforcement officers directing traffic,” they said.

The shooting is under investigation by the Texas Rangers. Martinez is at least the third U.S. citizen killed by federal immigration agents since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, following the fatal January shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!