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News recently became public about the fatal March 2025 shooting of a San Antonio man by federal immigration agents on South Padre Island. The only civilian witness to that shooting, the man’s passenger, died over the weekend in a car crash in San Antonio.
TPR’s Dan Katz speaks with New York Times journalist Edgar Sandoval, who has been covering both deaths.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Dan Katz: Edgar, can you start by walking us through what happened in the March 2025 shooting, the details of which have only now come to light?
Edgar Sandoval: So on Friday, we reported that a young man who was 22 years old by the name of Ruben Ray Martinez had gone to South Padre Island about a year ago to celebrate his 23rd birthday with a friend who we later learned was named Joshua Orta.
During that trip, they ran into what seemed like a car accident situation, so they encounter a big police presence, and then during that encounter, something evolved really quickly. So the young man was shot by one of the federal agents through the car window, and he died after.
Katz: And so those agents were HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, assisting local police.
Sandoval: Correct, there were federal agents who were assisting local police in a routine car accident scene.
Katz: So why did it take a year for us to find out that federal immigration agents were involved in the shooting?
Sandoval: So Newsweek was able to get a hold of internal documents that revealed that the young man who was shot a year ago was shot by a federal agent in that local law enforcement so we pursued that story as well. We obtained the documents ourselves, and the story ran on Friday, but over the weekend, we received a new tip saying that the passenger who was with this young man at the time had died in a car accident, and I had been trying to find the passenger myself to interview him, but sadly, this car accident occurred, and he died really early Saturday morning.
Katz: So a lot of questions remain following this accident.
Sandoval: There are a lot of questions, and all we have right now is a statement that Joshua Orta, the young man who was in the car, dictated to lawyers and investigators last year. So we have a pretty detailed account of what he saw, his version of events.
And he goes in detail about what happened, beat by beat. And in that description, he says that his friend never tried to antagonize either local or federal agents, and he said that he was even told by another officer to turn around and leave the scene. But that chaos ensued, and shortly after, an officer shot his friend right next to him.
Katz: This is very different than what DHS is saying about the incident.
Sandoval: According to the account that I was able to obtain — which is a detailed narration of the passenger's events, what he saw — the description is very different to what the authorities told us. The authorities, federal authorities, told us that the agent shot as part of a self-defense act, that the driver, Mr. Martinez, according to their documents, tried to drive away, and apparently, they said that he ran over an agent, and the other agent had to respond with fire.
But according to Mr. Orta, who was the passenger, things evolved very differently. They were just driving one moment, the next moment they were trying to turn away. After they told him they could turn away and leave, and next thing he knows, his friend is being shot by the window and then ended up on the ground being handcuffed.
Katz: You got to meet his family. What did they tell you about him and how this affected him?
Sandoval: When I met Mr. Orta’s family, they were obviously very distressed. They just learned that their son had died the night before really early Saturday, and they told me that ever since that incident, Mr. Orta seemed like a different young man. They came home after that horrible incident in South Padre Island a year ago, and they found him on the couch just he seemed, according to the Father, kind of out of it, he said.
And then he really didn't speak much about what happened. So he just got up, hugged them, and cried, and that's the last memory they have of that moment. And then Mr. Orta kind of remained kind of quiet, but they could see he was different ever since this happened.
Katz: Now that the only civilian witness has died, what does that mean for efforts to understand what happened?
Sandoval: So the only civilian witness did pass away, and all the attorneys who are presenting the driver's family have is this statement that he dictated to them before dying, and he was supposed to sign it actually in the next coming days, but unfortunately, he passed away, so he wasn't able to sign it, and they plan to still use the document in future legal proceedings, but without the main witness, it is a loss for investigators and for the attorneys going forward, and all we have left is the uniformed civilians and whoever else might have seen something who was there that day. So investigators and officers and I would imagine the attorneys are all looking for more witnesses who might have been there.
Katz: Lots of local leaders are calling for investigations, including Congressman Joaquin Castro and Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones. What do you see as the next steps for people looking for answers?
Sandoval: Everybody is looking for accountability and transparency, and like you said, a lot of elected officials are asking for federal investigations, Congressional investigations, so it remains to be seen if anyone is going to pick up these calls for transparency.
Edgar Sandoval is a San Antonio-based reporter with The New York Times.
Editor's Note: In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said it stands by its account of the incident. The full statement provided to TPR by a DHS spokesperson is below:
"On March 15, 2025, Homeland Security Investigation special agents were assisting the South Padre Island Police Department with traffic control after a major accident. A driver of a blue Ford intentionally ran over a Homeland Security Investigation special agent resulting in him being on the hood of the vehicle. Upon witnessing this, another agent fired defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public. The driver was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced deceased. The agent who was ran over sustained a knee injury and was taken to the hospital.
This incident is under active investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety Ranger Division. All further questions should be deferred to them."
