By MICHAEL BIESECKER and JESSE BEDAYN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Newly released records show a U.S. citizen was shot and killed in Texas by a federal immigration agent last year during a late-night traffic encounter that was not publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security.

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The death of Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, would mark the earliest of at least six deadly shootings by federal officers since the start of a nationwide immigration crackdown in President Donald Trump’s second term. On Friday, DHS said the shooting on South Padre Island last March occurred after the driver intentionally struck an agent.

The shooting involved a Homeland Security Investigations team that was conducting an immigration enforcement operation in conjunction with local police, according to documents obtained by American Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Washington.

The records are part of a tranche of heavily redacted internal documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the nonprofit obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Though Martinez’s death on March 15, 2025, was reported by local media outlets at the time, federal and state authorities did not disclose that the shooting involved the team from HSI. In a statement Friday, DHS said the driver who was killed “intentionally ran over a Homeland Security Investigation special agent,” resulting in another agent firing “defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public.”

The department did not respond to questions about why it had made no media release or other public notification of the officer-involved shooting over the last 11 months.

Martinez’s mother, Rachel Reyes, said her son was just days past his 23rd birthday when he and his best friend drove from San Antonio down to the beach for the weekend to celebrate. South Padre Island, located on the Gulf Coast just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, is a renowned spring break destination that attracts tens of thousands of college-aged partiers each March.

Martinez worked at an Amazon warehouse, liked to play video games and hang out with friends. His mother said he had never had any prior run-ins with law enforcement.

“He was a typical young guy,” Reyes told The Associated Press. “He never really got a chance to go out and experience things. It was his first time getting to go out of town. He was a nice guy, humble guy. And he wasn’t a violent person at all.”

Records show federal agents were assisting police

According to an internal two-page ICE incident report included in the newly disclosed documents, shortly after midnight, HSI officers were assisting South Padre Island police by redirecting traffic through a busy intersection after a vehicle accident with several injuries.

A blue, four-door Ford with a driver and passenger approached the officers, who ordered the driver to stop. The report does not say why. Initially, the driver didn’t respond to commands but did eventually come to a stop, according to the report.

Agents then surrounded the vehicle, telling those inside to get out, but the driver “accelerated forward” and struck an HSI special agent “who wound up on the hood of the vehicle,” the report said. An HSI supervisory special agent standing by the side of the car then fired his weapon multiple times through the open driver’s side window, and the vehicle stopped.

Paramedics already on the scene of the accident quickly provided medical aid and the driver was taken by ambulance to a regional hospital in Brownsville, where he was pronounced dead, according to the report. The passenger, also a U.S. citizen, was taken into custody.

The HSI officer who the report says was struck by the vehicle was treated for an unspecified knee injury at a nearby hospital and released.

The names of the two HSI agents involved in the shooting and the names of the two men in the car were all redacted from the ICE report, but Reyes confirmed the dead driver was her son. She said he was shot three times.

State investigation into shooting is still ‘active’

The report says the Texas Rangers responded to the shooting scene and took the lead as the primary agency investigating the shooting.

Reyes said she first learned her son had been shot by a federal agent, rather than a local police officer, about a week after he was killed. She was contacted by an investigator from the Rangers who she said told her there were videos of the shooting that contradicted the account provided by federal agents. DHS did not immediately respond to an email Friday about the claim that there is video showing a different account.

She said she was told by the investigator that the state report into the shooting was completed in October and that the case would be presented to a grand jury for potential criminal charges.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, which includes the Rangers, said in a statement Friday that the investigation into the shooting is still “active” and declined to offer more information.

Messages left with the office of Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz, an elected Democrat whose jurisdiction includes South Padre Island, received no response Friday. South Padre Island Police Chief Claudine O’Carroll also did not respond to requests for comment.

Attorneys for the family said Friday they have spent the past year pursuing accountability and transparency.

“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,” attorneys Charles M. Stam and Alex Stamm said in a statement.

Agents involved were part of a border task force

According to the ICE report, the HSI agents involved in the shooting were part of a maritime border enforcement security task force typically focused on combating transnational criminal organizations at seaports. Over the last year, however, officers from across multiple federal agencies have been reassigned to prioritize immigration enforcement.

In January, Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis, was killed in the driver’s seat of her SUV by ICE officer Jonathan Ross. Trump administration officials initially attempted to paint Good as a “domestic terrorist” who tried to ram officers with her vehicle before multiple videos emerged of the incident that cast doubt on the government’s narrative.

As in the Good case, experts in police training and tactics questioned why a federal officer apparently positioned himself in front of Martinez’s vehicle.

“You don’t stand in front of the car, you don’t put yourself in harm’s way,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a police use-of-force expert at the University of South Carolina. He added that there’s never a scenario where it’s justified, “because you don’t know whether this person is going to flee, and if he flees, you could be dead.”

Alpert said investigators will likely review any available body camera video or other footage to examine how swiftly Martinez moved the car forward, if he merely took his foot off the break or pressed down hard on the accelerator.

Martinez’s mother said she didn’t believe he would ever intentionally assault a law enforcement officer.

“They didn’t give him a chance,” Reyes said. “It’s so excessive. They could have done anything else besides that. It’s like they shoot first and ask questions later.”

Bedayn reported from Denver.

Some people might think the Friday Night Fish Fry during Lent is a Minnesota thing.

Sorry to disappoint you.

No.

It’s a Catholic thing. But you don’t have to know the Rosary frontwards and backwards — or know how to genuflect without glancing around to see if everyone else is doing it first — to enjoy it.

If you were raised Catholic, you already understand the mood. There is always a faint sense that you might be doing something slightly wrong. Even when you’re not. Especially when you’re not.

The whole operation began as a modest act of sacrifice. During Lent, Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays — a small weekly nod to discipline, reflection and spiritual restraint. A pause. A reminder. A spiritual tune-up in the middle of winter.

As a child, I understood Lent primarily as the season when hamburgers became illegal on Fridays and guilt became recreational. You gave something up. Candy. Pop. Joy. And then you tried not to brag about how well you were suffering.

Somewhere along the way, however, restraint met a deep fryer.

Fish became the obvious substitute. No beef. No chicken. No pork. Fine. We’ll have cod. Churches began hosting simple communal meals. Modest. Practical. Pious. Folding tables. Coffee strong enough to put hair on your soul.

And then the Midwest happened.

Now, Wisconsin will yell the loudest about it. They’ve practically trademarked the phrase. In that state, a Friday Fish Fry is less a meal and more a constitutional right. You don’t ask if there’s a fish fry. You ask where.

But Minnesota? Minnesota quietly turned it into something else.

Here, it’s less about sacrifice and more about deep-fried fellowship.

Yes, technically we’re abstaining from meat.

But we are also battering walleye, frying cod, stacking paper plates two thick for structural integrity, and forming lines that suggest the promise of tartar sauce has very real drawing power. You’ll hear phrases like “all-you-can-eat” spoken with a reverence normally reserved for hymnals.

In many towns, Lent doesn’t feel somber.

It feels organized.

Legion halls and VFWs put their menus on letterboards like prizefighters announcing a title bout. Knights of Columbus members in aprons moving with military precision. There are rumors about who has the best batter this year. People speak in hushed tones about “last Friday’s crowd,” as if attendance alone were a virtue.

And the lines.

Early in the Lenten season — when winter still has authority and optimism is mostly theoretical — Minnesotans will stand outside in temperatures normally reserved for a Will Steger expedition. Parkas zipped to the chin. Boots anchored on icy sidewalks. Breath rising like incense.

No one complains.

Suffering, after all, is on theme.

Because inside?

Cod.

Or walleye. Or perch.

Everyone has their favorite. Cod people are loyal. Walleye people are evangelical. Perch people will quietly tell you it’s underrated.

During Lent, flaky takes on a whole new meaning.

It’s no longer about texture.

It’s about virtue.

You are not indulging. You are observing. Participating in a centuries-old tradition … that just happens to include French fries, coleslaw in quantities rivaling the Great Minnesota Get-Together, and unlimited refills of something orange and carbonated.

Even Lutherans show up. Quietly. Respectfully. Possibly with Tupperware. No one asks questions. We are ecumenical when batter is involved.

Somewhere in the kitchen, there is always someone’s uncle managing the fryer like it’s a sacred calling. He has opinions about oil temperature. He does not trust newcomers near the baskets. He refers to haddock as if it were an old friend.

The theology may be Roman.

The oil temperature is aggressively Minnesotan.

Lent is forty days of sacrifice. Forty days of reflection. Forty days of giving something up.

But only six Fridays.

Six Fridays to stand in a Legion or VFW hall that smells faintly of fryer oil and brewed coffee.

Six Fridays to debate cod versus walleye like it’s a matter of doctrine.

Six Fridays to practice abstinence — from meat, at least — while exercising impressive commitment to batter.

A season meant for restraint has somehow become six very well-organized evenings of abundance.

Forty days of reflection.

Six Fridays of deep-fried fellowship.

Not indulgence exactly.

Though if you go back for seconds, you may feel compelled to mention it quietly in confession to Father O’Shea.

Just community … served hot, with tartar sauce.

Mark Glende, Rosemount, is an elementary school custodian. “I write about real-life stories with a slight twist of humor,” he says. “I’m not smart enough to make this stuff up.”

By RIO YAMAT

The ability of federal safety regulators to oversee airplane maintenance at United Airlines has been hindered by inadequate staffing, high employee turnover and the improper use of virtual inspections instead of on-site reviews in some cases, according to a government watchdog audit released Friday.

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The U.S. Transportation Department’s inspector general said the Federal Aviation Administration lacks sufficient staffing and workforce planning to effectively monitor United’s large fleet. Past audits by the government watchdog also highlighted FAA challenges overseeing other airline maintenance programs, including at American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Allegiant Air.

The FAA declined to comment on the findings but referred The Associated Press to a letter it sent the inspector general’s office that was included in the audit report. In it, the FAA said it agreed with most of the recommendations and was taking steps to address them by the end of the year.

“FAA will implement a more systemic approach to strengthen inspector capacity and will take other measures to ensure that staffing levels remain sufficient to meet surveillance requirements,” the letter said.

The recommendations included a reevaluation of staffing rules, an independent workplace survey of inspector workloads and office culture, and improved training on accessing and using United’s safety data — a current gap that the report said currently keeps inspectors from fully evaluating maintenance issues and safety risk trends.

In a statement to AP, United said it works closely with the FAA on a daily basis in addition to employing its own internal safety management system.

“United has long advocated in favor of providing the FAA with the resources it needs for its important work,” the carrier said.

The inspector general’s office said the audit was conducted between May 2024 and December 2025, amid a series of maintenance-linked incidents at United.

It found that the FAA sometimes had its personnel conduct inspections “virtually” when it lacked staffing or funding for travel even though agency policy requires postponing reviews that can’t be done on site. Doing the work remotely can create safety risks because inspectors may miss or misidentify maintenance problems, the reported stated.

“Inspectors we spoke with stated that their front-line managers instructed them to perform inspections virtually rather than postponing inspections,” the report said.

The audit also found that ongoing staffing shortages at the FAA inspection offices tasked with United’s oversight have resulted in fewer inspections being conducted, limited surveillance of the carrier’s maintenance operations and an “overall loss of institutional knowledge.”

In March 2024, passengers had to be evacuated from a United plane that rolled off a runway after landing in Houston. The next day, a United jetliner bound for Japan lost a tire while taking off from San Francisco but later landed safely in Los Angeles.

In December 2025, a United flight experienced an engine failure during takeoff from Dulles International Airport before safely returning to the airport.

Associated Press writer Josh Funk contributed.

By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer

LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — The next time you see a senior citizen barreling down the mountain, maybe doing a double-cork while he’s at it, don’t think twice. That might just be your neighborhood’s friendly new Olympic champion.

Alex Ferreira, the freeskier who occasionally dons prosthetics to look 80 and calls his alter ego “Hotdog Hans” when he’s not kicking butt in the halfpipe, added a gold medal Friday night to the silver and bronze he’d won at the last two games to “finish the rainbow,” as his mother said.

The 31-year-old, a longtime fixture on the slopes and in the schools and rec centers in Aspen, Colorado, also put America in the win column for the first time in two weeks of halfpipe, slopestyle and big air action at the Livigno Snow Park.

“I’m going to drink copious amounts of beer,” Ferreira said when asked how he would celebrate.

He’s fun like that. This was a popular victory all across the park, squeezed out of a tight, brutal, all-night battle with Estonia’s Henry Sildaru — who skis slopestyle and big air, too, just like Eileen Gu — and Canada’s Brendan Mackay.

Bedlam and tears broke out in the stands after Mackay laid down the night’s last run, a solid one, but came up 2.75 points short of Ferreira’s winning score: 93.75.

When the Canadian’s mark came up, Ferreira bent to one knee and flashed a smile that lit up the mountain.

“Best moment of my life,” he said.

Asked what the best thing about the new gold medalist was, Mackay said there was too much to list.

“But honestly, the biggest thing that stands out about Alex, is that he is just an incredibly nice guy,” he said.

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Among those near the medal stand to congratulate Ferreira was two-time Olympic titlist David Wise, who made the trip despite not making the Olympic team. He was ranked eighth in the world in halfpipe this season — a true sign of how deep the American team runs.

Also sharing hugs was Nick Goepper, the American three-time medalist in slopestyle who switched to the halfpipe in search of his first gold.

In the evening’s most visceral sign of what this contest really meant, Goepper threw caution to the wind on his last run and flung his body high above the halfpipe, his back slamming wickedly on the deck before he bounced to the bottom of the pipe.

He was lucky to walk away from that — not as fortunate that Mackay’s 91 on the last run of the night bumped him from third to fourth by a scant 2 points.

“To go for it in that moment took serious guts,” Ferreira said. “He is a real man.”

Drama involving Hess extended beyond the halfpipe

Clutch skiing and huge crashes were only part of the drama that played out among these halfpipe riders. The show started two weeks earlier.

American Hunter Hess opened the morning’s qualifying by landing a good run, then putting his thumb and forefinger in the shape of an “L,” in a nod to the eruption that occurred Feb. 8 when President Donald Trump called Hess a “total Loser,” in response to Hess’ saying “Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.”

“I had a week that was pretty challenging,” Hess said after qualifying, speaking of the threats and vitriol lobbed his way after the president weighed in. He finished 10th in the final and did not stop for interviews.

Ferreira fills in the final missing piece to a fantastic career

Ferreira, not surprisingly, spent the entire aftermath of the contest smiling. There’s more to come.

He has already shot six episodes of his YouTube streamer “Hotdog Hans,” an entertaining trip to the mountain in which the 80-something daredevil does truck-driver grabs and 1080s in front of unsuspecting resort goers who cannot believe their eyes.

“Just trying to bring some humor and funniness to the world,” he explained.

In between the fun and games lies a more serious pursuit.

Ferreira went 7 for 7 in World Cup events in 2024 — the sort of undefeated streak that really doesn’t happen much in sports, especially not in this one, where talent, like the medals, are spread very evenly across the United States, Canada, Estonia — the world.

Those sort of streaks, in Olympic off-years, can sometimes leave a guy wondering.

“You don’t want to peak two years before the Games,” said Gus Kenworthy, the 2014 slopestyle silver medalist who finished sixth in this one. “But I’m stoked for him that it worked out tonight. It was one of the best runs I’ve seen him do in a long time, maybe ever, and I’m happy.”

When Ferreira’s skis smacked down lightly on the fifth of five butter-smooth landings in the contest winner, he started whipping around his right ski pole — his signature move in what now goes down as his signature win.

A few minutes later, his sisters and parents were crying and he was on the top step of the podium, singing out loud as the “Star-Spangled Banner” played for the first time at the Livigno Snow Park.

He used to be the best freeskier in the world without an Olympic title. Not anymore.

“He had the silver, the bronze and he needed the gold,” said Alex’s mother, Colleen Ferreira. “He was driven. A year ago, he said he was going to do this, and he did it.”

AP Sports Writer Joseph Wilson contributed.

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics