A Texas grand jury has declined to indict the federal immigration agent who fatally shot Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old American citizen, during a late-night traffic encounter on South Padre Island last year.
The Cameron County District Attorney’s Office announced on Wednesday that the grand jury returned a “no bill” after reviewing the case, offering no further details about what evidence was presented or how the decision was reached.
The decision has left Martinez’s family devastated — and searching for answers about a killing that the federal government kept hidden from the public for nearly a year.
A Birthday Trip That Ended in Gunfire
Martinez, a warehouse worker from San Antonio, was on a Spring Break trip to South Padre Island with his longtime friend Joshua Orta, celebrating his birthday.
In the early hours of March 15, 2025, the two were driving near the scene of an unrelated auto accident where Homeland Security Investigations agents — a unit that operates under ICE — were helping local police direct traffic.
What happened next depends entirely on who you believe.
According to an internal ICE incident report, Martinez’s vehicle approached the officers and the driver failed to respond to commands.
After eventually stopping, agents surrounded the car and ordered the occupants to exit.
ICE claims Martinez then accelerated forward, striking an agent who ended up on the hood of the vehicle.
A supervisory agent then fired multiple rounds through the open driver’s side window.
The Department of Homeland Security has maintained that Martinez tried to “intentionally run over” an agent, causing another agent to fire “defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public.”
Note: That’s how Kristi Noem described what happened in the shooting of Renee Good.
A Sharply Different Story From the Only Witness
But the account from Orta, the passenger sitting beside Martinez that night, paints a starkly different picture.
In a draft affidavit obtained by the Associated Press, Orta stated that a police officer initially told them to leave.
As they were trying to turn around, another officer approached and slapped the hood of the car, appearing to position himself in front of the vehicle.
Officers surrounded the car with weapons drawn, yelling at them to stop.
Orta said the car was barely moving — “just crawling as we were trying to turn around” — and that Martinez “never hit anyone or pressed the gas.”
According to the affidavit, a federal agent at the driver’s side window pulled his weapon and fired without “giving any warning, any commands, or any opportunity to comply.”
Orta recalled hearing Martinez whisper “I’m sorry” as he slumped backward, unconscious. Martinez’s mother, Rachel Reyes, has said her son was shot three times.
Note: Orta’s explanation of events sounds similar to the circumstances in the Renee Good shooting.
The Only Eyewitness Is Now Dead
In a deeply troubling development, Orta — the sole civilian witness to the shooting and the person whose testimony directly contradicted the government’s version of events — died in a car crash in San Antonio over the weekend, just days before the grand jury reached its decision.
His death means the most critical independent account of what happened that night can never be tested in court.
A Family Demanding Transparency
Martinez’s attorneys — Charles M. Stam, Alex Stamm, and Butch Hayes — issued a statement expressing the family’s anguish and frustration.
“It is critical that there is a full and fair investigation into why HSI 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 noted that the grand jury process was conducted entirely in private, and that the family has no idea what evidence was presented.
They do not know whether jurors saw video footage of the encounter, heard Orta’s testimony, or reviewed the draft affidavit that contradicts the government’s narrative.
The attorneys also referenced video they say shows an ICE agent dragging Martinez to the ground and handcuffing him immediately after he was shot three times — a detail that raises serious questions about the agents’ conduct even after the shooting.
The family is now calling on the Texas Department of Public Safety to publicly release the full findings of its investigation.
In a detail that underscores the deeply personal nature of this tragedy, the attorneys noted that Martinez’s family are self-described proud Americans, supporters of law enforcement, and Trump voters.
They are not looking for a political fight.
They simply want to know why their son was killed.
A Pattern That Cannot Be Ignored
Martinez’s death was not an isolated incident. His shooting is believed to be the earliest of at least six fatal shootings by federal officers since the Trump administration launched its aggressive nationwide mass deportation project.
Among the dead are two other U.S. citizens — Alex Pretti and Renee Good — who were fatally shot by ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minnesota, sparking nationwide protests.
Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that the federal government made no effort to disclose its involvement in Martinez’s death.
Local media reported the shooting at the time, but DHS did not acknowledge that federal immigration agents were responsible until the Associated Press and other outlets broke the story nearly a year later, after the government watchdog group American Oversight obtained internal records through a Freedom of Information Act request.
When federal agents can shoot an unarmed American citizen, keep it secret for a year, and face no criminal consequences even when the only eyewitness account contradicts their story, something is deeply broken in our system of accountability.
Ruben Ray Martinez deserved to come home from his birthday trip. His family deserves the truth. And the American public deserves to know how many more stories like this are being kept in the dark.
