Prosecutors drop charges brought to cover-up unprovoked shooting

Another appalling sequence of events related to a particularly extreme Kavanaugh stop:

Federal prosecutors moved to dismiss charges on Thursday against two motorists who were accused of using their cars to “assault, impede and interfere with the work of federal agents” during an immigration enforcement operation in the Chicago area.

The motion from prosecutors did not provide a reason for dismissing the indictment against the motorists, Marimar Martinez, 30, and Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, 21. A federal agent shot and wounded Ms. Martinez during the incident in October, asserting that she had driven her car directly at the agent before the shots were fired. Ms. Martinez was treated at a local hospital.

The incident involving Ms. Martinez and Mr. Ruiz was among those underpinning an argument by the Trump administration, made to the Supreme Court in an emergency application, on why President Trump had the authority to deploy the National Guard in Chicago.

Administration officials have said that immigration agents attempting to enforce federal law required protection from National Guard troops because local police were not sufficiently protecting the agents.

It’s a nesting doll of pretexts for arbitrary detention and violence that finally collapsed:

They lied about it. All of it. A thug cop shot an unarmed woman five times without justification, boasted about it to his colleagues, and then this administration tried cover it all up by arresting her and charging her with felonies.

[image or embed]— Radley Balko (@radleybalko.bsky.social) Nov 20, 2025 at 10:24 AM

This is clearly the cues they’re getting from leadership, and there’s going to be many more such cases.