CHARLOTTE — Channel 9 has obtained a video recorded inside an ICE agent’s vehicle during a chase through University City on Saturday.
The video, recorded by an agent and presented as evidence in a federal court, paints a clearer picture of the chase and how it ended.
Federal investigators said in an affidavit that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers were in a public parking lot on North Tryon Street when an agent spotted a white Sprinter van that had followed him earlier from an operation.
They say the driver of that van was 24-year-old Miguel Angel Garcia Martinez. The indictment says agents tried to make contact with Martinez to warn him to stop following Border Patrol operations. Martinez then drove away “aggressively and at a high rate of speed,” and avoided officers by “swerving in and out of traffic, crossing medians and sidewalks, as well as driving into oncoming traffic down North Tryon Street.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office submitted the video as evidence on Thursday for a probable cause hearing and bond hearing.
Watch the raw footage below:
The judge ultimately approved an unsecured bond of $25,000, but said he needed more time to review the case before ruling whether there was enough probable cause to charge Martinez with felony assault with a deadly weapon.
Martinez’s attorney said his client did nothing wrong until agents started chasing him after he tried to leave what the FBI affidavit says was a ‘voluntary stop.’
In the video at the top of this webpage, we breakdown the Border Patrol footage.
VIDEO: Local leaders and activists address Border Patrol operation in east Charlotte
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