The mayor of San Antonio, Gina Ortiz Jones, has asked Congress to open an investigation into the March 2025 killing of 23‑year‑old Ruben Ray Martinez by a Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) agent on South Padre Island, saying that Martinez’s family “deserve answers and transparency around his death,” according to a press release issued by the mayor on Saturday, February 21, 2026, which she then posted on social media platform, X.
Who Was Ruben Ray Martinez?
Martinez was a U.S. citizen from San Antonio who had traveled to South Padre Island to celebrate his 23rd birthday, his mother told Newsweek. He was fatally shot by an HSI agent on March 15, 2025. HSI is the primary investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), responsible for federal criminal investigations.
The Shooting of Ruben Ray Martinez
According to records from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which were reviewed by Newsweek, HSI agents—along with local police—were redirecting traffic at the scene of a crash when they encountered Martinez’s vehicle.
An ICE Significant Incident Report confirmed that the HSI agents had asked Martinez—who was driving a blue, four-door Ford car—to slow down. But instead of doing so, the report said, Martinez accelerated and ran into an agent, who ended up on the hood of the vehicle, prompting another HSI agent to fire multiple rounds through the driver’s side window.
A DHS spokesperson told Newsweek: “A driver of a blue Ford intentionally ran over a Homeland Security Investigation special agent…Upon witnessing this, another agent fired defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public.”
Newsweek has been unable to independently corroborate the agency’s account. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) told Newsweek that its Rangers division was still actively investigating the shooting.
Martinez was taken to Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville, where he was later pronounced dead, the report said. His passenger was taken into custody by South Padre Island police, and the struck agent was hospitalized with a knee injury.
Why the Mayor of San Antonio Wants Martinez’s Death Investigated
Martinez’s death was initially reported by various local news outlets as an officer‑involved shooting, but authorities did not publicly disclose ICE’s role in the incident for nearly a year, and the federal agency’s involvement only became public after the watchdog group American Oversight shared DHS records with Newsweek.
Martinez’s family attorneys Charles M. Stam and Alex Stamm said in a statement to Newsweek that: “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.”
“We deserve to know what happened,” Jones said in an interview with News 4 San Antonio. “Everybody in our community deserves to be safe, no matter who they are—and they certainly deserve answers when somebody, one of their loved ones, one of their neighbors, is killed.”
In a separate press release, Jones said, “The delay in providing answers to the Martinez family and to the community only makes our neighbors wonder: ‘How many more Ruben Ray Martinezes are out there, and how many more could there be?’”
In a statement given to Newsweek, Martinez’s mother—Rachel Reyes—said: “Since Ruben’s death a year ago, all we have wanted is justice for him, and we have struggled with the silence surrounding his killing…It’s my hope that attention being raised now into Ruben’s death will help bring the justice we want for him and the answers we haven’t had.”
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