A woman shot by a Border Patrol agent five times in Chicago last year is suing the federal government, alleging the officer lied about her using her car as a weapon while intervening in an immigration operation.

Marimar Martinez, a 31-year-old Montessori school teacher, filed the lawsuit Monday — the anniversary of the shooting — under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows citizens to sue the U.S. government over harms inflicted by federal employees. The 33-page complaint recounts the shooting of Martinez by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum, which occurred after Martinez began following Exum’s car with the goal of warning residents that federal agents were in the area.

In her lawsuit seeking unspecified damages, Martinez says Exum shot her while she was in her car and “presented no risk of harm to anyone”; that he failed to comply with use-of-force policies; and that he swerved his car into the path of hers, “thereby leaving her no time to react and causing a collision between the vehicles.”

At a news conference announcing the lawsuit, Martinez’s lawyer, Christopher Parente, drew comparisons to the cases of other Americans falsely accused of threatening federal agents with their cars, including Renee Good, who was killed by a federal officer in Minneapolis earlier this year. Good’s family sued the Trump administration and several federal officials last week.

“It’s always, ‘Hey, they weaponized their vehicle. They were driving directly at me,’” Parente said.

Exum previously made headlines when his text messages to fellow officers showed him bragging about shooting Martinez. The release of those texts in court led to the collapse of the government’s case against Martinez, who officials sought to prosecute for assaulting a federal officer before eventually moving to dismiss the case.

Parente told MS NOW earlier this year that Exum was the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation focused on the shooting of Martinez, citing an assistant U.S. attorney in Indiana who Parente said confirmed to him the existence of the investigation. Lawyers for the government previously stated in court that there was a “separate but related ongoing criminal investigation,” but did not specify its focus, according to the court filings.

Parente told MS NOW on Tuesday that he did not have an update into the status of the investigation. A spokesperson for the Chicago field office of Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees Border Patrol, told MS NOW the agency is “committed to the highest standards of conduct, transparency, and accountability” and that “all significant use-of-force incidents” are reviewed by the independent National Use of Force Review Board.

The CBP spokesperson reiterated that Exum was placed on administration leave “consistent with policy” — though it’s unclear when that occurred and if Exum is still on leave — and referred further questions to the Justice Department. A DOJ spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Parente said at the Monday press conference that Martinez’s legal team had also filed a complaint with the Chicago Police Department in August, hoping the state attorney’s office or even the FBI would pursue charges against Exum. A spokesperson for the Chicago Police told MS NOW that the investigation is “open and active.”

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