WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Authorities in Texas released police footage Friday showing the moment a US citizen was shot dead by a federal immigration agent in the state last year, months before the high-profile killings of two Americans in Minneapolis.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not publicly acknowledge its involvement in the March 2025 shooting death of 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez until last month, after a public records request from a nonprofit revealed an internal department memo indicating a federal agent fired the fatal shots.

Martinez is believed to be the first of three US citizens known to have been shot and killed by federal immigration agents during President Donald Trump’s second term.

DHS officials have described the shooting in South Padre Island as a defensive action. The internal agency memo, reviewed by Agence France-Presse, alleged Martinez ignored commands from officers to stop his car and instead accelerated, “striking a (Homeland Security Investigations) special agent who wound up on the hood of the vehicle.”

The memo said a DHS agent shot “multiple rounds at the driver through the open driver’s side window.”

An incident report filed by the South Padre Island Police Department said Martinez’s vehicle “intentionally collided with a Federal Agent.”

Body camera footage released Friday by the Texas Department of Public Safety did not clearly show Martinez striking an officer with his car. In one video, the car’s brake lights appear to be on when three shots are heard.

The footage shows police pulling Martinez from the car after he was shot, placing him on the ground and handcuffing him.

Another video shows the car’s passenger Joshua Orta telling investigators he believed his friend Martinez “panicked” when the pair drove up to the officers at the scene of a traffic accident, noting they had been drinking that night.

Orta said the vehicle was “barely moving” moments before the shots were fired, adding the vehicle “caught (the agent’s) feet.”

“I know he didn’t mean to hurt no officer. He wouldn’t do nothing like that,” Orta said of Martinez.

Orta died in an unrelated car accident in San Antonio on 21 February, US media reported.

Attorneys for Martinez’s mother told media this week that the newly released videos “confirm that Ruben’s car was barely moving when he was shot.”

Last month, a Texas grand jury declined to indict the agent who shot Martinez.

Details about the federal involvement in Martinez’s death were revealed as part of a records request by American Oversight, a nonprofit government watchdog group.

The shooting came about 10 months before immigration agents shot dead Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both US citizens, during Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

Those killings sparked weeks of nationwide protest, and the Trump administration later said it was ending its operation in the Midwestern city.

Trump on Thursday fired his DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, amid US media reports that he was upset with her handling of the Minneapolis crackdown.