Cook County State's Attorney's Office responds to the referral
Office of the elected Cook County State's Attorney, responding in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times
“The Cook County State's Attorney's Office is committed to seeking justice on behalf of anyone harmed during Operation Midway Blitz when the evidence and the law support a prosecution.”
Source and context
Reporting
About this source
Reports that Chicago Police's Investigative Response Team opened a criminal investigation into the Exum shooting after Martinez's attorney said the FBI and DOJ Civil Rights Division had not acted; includes quoted statements from attorney Christopher Parente and the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
The Sun-Times reported that Burke's office had said "no one is above the law — including federal agents," but had also stressed that it is the responsibility of law enforcement to build a case before her office can consider charges. No federal agent had been charged with an on-duty crime connected to Operation Midway Blitz.
After the quotation
The statement came after CPD's Investigative Response Team had been assigned to investigate the Exum shooting, following Parente's public statement that the FBI and DOJ Civil Rights Division had not investigated it.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Was Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum justified in shooting Marimar Martinez?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
The office commits to prosecuting if evidence and law support it, but does not say whether it believes that threshold is met here, and does not characterize Exum's conduct as justified or unjustified. It neither condemns nor defends the shooting; it conditions any action on a future evidentiary judgment, which is a conditional commitment rather than a position on the underlying dispute.
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- People and groups discussed
- Charles Exum
Was Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum justified in shooting Marimar Martinez?
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More from this case
Read the full case“Whether it be the apartment raids in South Shore, the shooting of Marimar Martinez in Brighton Park, or the murder of Silverio Villegas González, it’s been proven that ICE does NOT keep us safe - they are designed to intimidate communities of color and deport as many people as possible.”Read statement
“After learning they are unwilling to do their job, or even investigate the facts, we now turn to the Cook County State's Attorney's Office for help ensuring that the concepts of justice and accountability still exist in the United States of America.”Read statement
Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus
“The findings of the Illinois Accountability Commission are clear: a documented pattern of ICE, Border Patrol and federal agents making discriminatory arrests based on race and ethnicity, acting recklessly, endangering the lives of community members and retaliating against rapid responders and community members – not only in the case of Villegas González, but also in the shooting of Marimar Martinez.”Read statement