The sole passenger in the vehicle when a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed a San Antonio man nearly a year ago has died in an unrelated car crash, the New York Times reports.
That passenger, Joshua Orta, 25 — who was killed Saturday in a San Antonio highway collision — had planned to contradict the federal government’s account of the death of his childhood friend, Ruben Ray Martinez, according to the newspaper.
Orta was in the passenger seat on March 15, 2025, when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot Martinez, then 23, multiple times at the site of a South Padre Island crash site. Federal officials said the agent opened fire after Martinez refused to comply with commands and struck the agent with his car.
However, in a statement from Orta obtained by the Times, the San Antonio resident maintained that he and his friend made no attempt to resist and were actually trying to comply with officers’ commands to turn the vehicle around when the ICE agent fired.
In the document reported on by the Times, Orta said traffic was backed up, allowing Martinez no room to turn around, adding that he never saw his friend strike the ICE agent. He said an officer “seemed to be trying to get in front of the car,” at which point officers drew their guns.
Shortly after, a federal agent fired “multiple shots” through the open driver-side window, “without giving any warning, commands or opportunity to comply,” the Times reported of Orta’s statement.
“I heard Ruben say, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then he slumped backward,” Orta reportedly added.
Lawyers for Martinez’s family took Orta’s statement last September in preparation for future legal proceedings, according to the Times. Prior to his death, Orta reportedly planned to sign his statement and cooperate with investigators.
Orta died in a fiery collision around 1 a.m. on Saturday when he lost control of the vehicle he was driving and smashed into a utility pole, according to the Times. The car ignited and Orta died before the passengers, including a stepsister, were able to pull him from the wreckage, his stepfather told the newspaper.
While Martinez’s shooting death was covered by local media when it occurred, there was no indication at the time that an ICE agent pulled the trigger. That detail only came to light last week after a watchdog group American Oversight made the official report public along with other documents related to ICE enforcement.
At that point, the Current and other publications reported on Martinez’s death, which appears to be first U.S. citizen killed by ICE agents since the start of the second Trump administration. The shooting deaths of Minnesota residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti earlier this year drew a national backlash against ICE and the White House’s aggressive immigration crackdown.
Both San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat who represents the city, have called for congressional investigations into Martinez’s death.
“In normal times, I would call upon the appropriate departments to investigate this matter,” Jones said in a statement released Saturday. “However, we’re not in normal times, and it’s unclear any department-led investigations would be fairly executed, as evident by the delay in getting answers to this point. Therefore, our Congressional leaders must do their part in initiating an oversight investigation into the death of Ruben Ray Martinez.”
For his part, Castro accused the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers for working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to orchestrate an “organized coverup” of the shooting.
“It’s very unusual that for almost a year they would not disclose that an ICE agent shot and killed this person,” the congressman said.
Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
