Police body cameras capture federal agents fabricating attack by local activist in October
OXNARD, Calif. (KEYT) – On Oct. 16 of last year, Leo Martinez, an activist with local immigrant rights group VC Defensa, was recording federal immigration operations when agents drove their vehicle into truck he was driving, claimed he had hit them, and then took him into custody.
Videos, images, and accounts that came out the same day and since then have revealed a very different version of events that directly contradict statements made by federal agents to local dispatchers and responding officers.
The difference between what was captured on camera and what was reported by federal agents was something Oxnard Police Department's Chief of Police Jason Benites noted to Your News Channel back in October.
"At about 11 AM, a video surfaced on social media. The video depicts a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee, driven by ICE agents, broadsiding a grey Nissan Frontier. The person who was arrested by the agents is driving the Nissan. Though the video does not tell the entire story, such as what may have preceded the video, it calls to question what may have transpired."
Martinez was eventually taken from the scene by federal agents to Las Robles Medical Center in Thousand Oaks and was released from a federal detention facility in Los Angeles around 3 p.m. the same day.
He was told he was facing charges related to the incident, but he has yet to be formally charged in any jurisdiction.
Your News Channel interviewed Martinez after his release and he shared footage from inside his truck that captured elements of the incident that do not match the accounts provided to Ventura County dispatchers and Oxnard Police officers by federal agents.
To confirm what happened before Martinez was taken away by federal agents from the dirt lot off of A Street in Oxnard back in October, Your News Channel reached out to the Department of Homeland Security and the Oxnard Police Department before filing requests through the California Public Records Act for the local police department as well as a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the federal agency.
While the federal government responded to Your News Channel's questions with an indirect statement about the incident followed by a blanket denial of Your News Channel's FOIA request for more information, the local police agency did comply with state disclosure laws by providing written accounts from two of the involved officers with the Oxnard Police Department, Officer Wood and Officer Flannery, who responded to the scene on Oct. 16.
In December, the Oxnard Police Department provided body-worn camera footage from six officers who responded to the scene in compliance with the state disclosure law.
According to the written accounts and body camera footage reviewed by Your News Channel, officers were initially dispatched to the area for a road rage incident reported to dispatchers by an uninvolved driver around 7:48 a.m. on Oct. 16, 2025.
The person who called in what they believed was a road rage incident described a silver Jeep ramming a black truck, but they didn't see who was driving either vehicle noted Officer Wood in his written account.
At 7:59 a.m., a Ventura County dispatcher received a call from a person who stated they were an agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and that they were pursuing a Nissan Frontier truck after it had collided with their silver Jeep Cherokee in the area of 255 West Fifth Street.
The caller requested that local law enforcement respond to assist with the ongoing "safety incident" detailed Officer Wood.
Officers Flannery and Espinosa with the Oxnard Police Department were working in a two-man unit in a marked patrol car when they were sent to the scene of the reported hit-and-run noted Officer Flannery's written account.
The duo conducted a traffic stop on the involved truck and the driver, later identified as Leo Martinez of Oxnard, pulled over into a dirt lot at the intersection of Oxnard Boulevard and A Street where he cooperated with investigating officers explained Officer Wood in his written account.
Body camera footage revealed officers had Leo Martinez exit his truck from the passenger side due to the damage to the driver's side of the vehicle.
Officer Wood stated in his written account that he spotted major front end damage to the silver Jeep at the scene and asked that the occupants of the Jeep -who identified themselves and wore insignias indicating they were federal agents- to move their damaged vehicle away from the other involved party, Leo Martinez.
He then informed all law enforcement personnel at the scene that he would be managing the investigation into the road rage incident his written account noted.
Officers then conducted interviews with federal agents and Leo Martinez.
According to Officer Brown's and Wood's body cam footage, a person wearing an FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) insignia stated that multiple vehicles had boxed in the agent's vehicle before the collision with Leo Martinez's truck occurred.
Your News Channel reached out to the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office to confirm that the woman shown in the image above is an FBI agent.
While the federal law enforcement agency stated that FBI agents have and do assist the Department of Homeland Security with operations, they did not confirm the woman sharing information about a coordinated attack on federal agents on Oct. 16, 2025, is an agent nor if an agent was assigned to the group of federal agents for a particular law enforcement purpose that day.
"The FBI is an intelligence-driven and threat-focused national security organization with both intelligence and law enforcement responsibilities," states the About page for the federal agency. "It is the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Justice and a full member of the U.S. Intelligence Community.
A DHS spokesperson stated in October that federal agents were seeking to apprehend a Mexican national who is a registered sex offender on Oct. 16, 2025, but no other details about the operation, including if it was authorized by a judicial warrant or involved national security elements, were provided despite multiple requests for more information.
Oxnard Police Officers interviewed the man who identified himself as a federal agent and the driver of the vehicle with federal agents inside and his description of the incident shared with investigating officers is shown below from OPD Officer Flannery's body camera video.
Officer Flannery's body camera also captured Leo Martinez's account of the incident and that he feared what would happen if he stopped after agents activated their roof lights following the collision that damaged both vehicles.
Your News Channel did not alter the body camera footage provided by the Oxnard Police Department and shared in this article. Leo Martinez's face was blurred in the original versions provided by the local law enforcement agency.
Officer Melgoza's body cameras showed that protesters who gathered at the scene shouted that the federal agents had rammed Leo Martinez and that it was captured on camera.
One protester was heard warning federal agents that recordings of the collision would be, "on the news tonight".
VC Defensa shared a video on social media hours later showing an SUV deliberately colliding with the truck driven by Leo Martinez.
Notably, the front-end damage spotted by Officer Wood is not present in the videos shared by both VC Defensa hours later and by Leo Martinez days later indicating there was no major collision that federal agents reported to dispatchers and investigating officers at the scene and certainly not indicative of a coordinated vehicular attack by multiple observers detailed at the scene by a federal agent.
The images below showed the sequence of the second collision from another angle which capture both the largely undamaged front end of the agent's vehicle and the sequence of events leading to the collision.
Martinez shared with Oxnard Police Officers interviewing him at the scene that he was recording the agents when they became aggressive and began to closely follow him as he made a series of U-turns before they agent's vehicle rammed into him.
The federal agent who told officers at the scene he was the one driving the Jeep reported to Officer Flannery that agents had attempted to initiate contact with Martinez by positioning their vehicle behind Martinez's truck.
The driving agent then claimed Martinez had began to drive away before coming to an abrupt stop and reversing into the agent's vehicle stated Officer Flannery's written account and captured his body camera at the scene.
According to Officer Flannery's written account and body cam footage, the agent then claimed that both vehicles began to pull forward and, before he could activate the vehicle's emergency lights to conduct a traffic stop, Martinez suddenly made, "a quick sharp turn to the left, directly in front of the agent's path, and he [the agent driving the Jeep] was unable to stop in time to avoid a collision."
Responding officers even noted the wide discrepancies between what federal agents and Leo Martinez had shared at the scene and one officer mentioned to Leo Martinez that there were multiple cameras along the route of the slow-speed chase before concluding, "Cameras don't lie."
Federal agents noted to Oxnard Police Officers Wood and Rebollar more than once that video of the collision was recorded by Leo Martinez and that he had thrown the device into another vehicle before stopping.
A supervisor of the federal agents, who arrived at the scene later, reminded Oxnard Police officers that a recording device had been tossed to other activists before officers had stopped Leo Martinez.
Video of the crash would be a crucial element in any investigation and especially in court proceeding if charges had been filed against Leo Martinez, but what baffled local officers at the scene was a lack of interest in taking possession of Leo Martinez's truck, the ostensible weapon connected to their claims of an attack.
Ultimately, agents left the scene without sharing a plan on retrieving the damaged truck and Oxnard Police officers left it at the scene with the keys inside after a discussion amongst themselves their respective body cameras captured.
Video recordings of violent encounters with federal agents have played a crucial role in determining the accuracy of statements from the federal government and served as a catalyst for investigations, but in some cases, including that of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last month, the Department of Justice has declined to investigate.
"[T]here is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation," stated Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in response to the death of Renee Good.
Additionally, in November of last year, federal prosecutors dropped felony charges against Marimar Martinez, a Chicago educator shot five times by a Border Patrol agent during Operation Midway Blitz late last year, after body camera evidence emerged that contradicted agent's accounts and statements by federal officials.
During October's incident in Oxnard, federal agents spoke with a person the agents shared was the "AUSA", an acronym often used to refer to an Assistant U.S. Attorney, a federal prosecutor, and the federal agent's supervisor stated the decision about what was going to happen to Leo Martinez that day was ultimately up to the "AUSA" captured OPD Officer Wood's body camera.
Your News Channel reached out to federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, which includes Ventura County in its jurisdictional responsibilities, multiple times about what appeared to be legal counsel at the scene, the nature of its involvement in the incident, and what charges Leo Martinez was facing.
Despite the written and recorded evidence of the participation of at least one federal prosecutor, likely within their office a spokesperson later admitted, the First Assistant's Office declined to confirm the person identified by federal agents as an Assistant U.S. Attorney was a prosecutor from their office.
The First Assistant's Office then claimed that the content of the conversation captured by Oxnard Police officer's body cameras and reviewed by Your News Channel is private information under attorney-client privilege and could be subject to litigation if aired.
Regardless of the content of the phone call, the context of potentially unlawful actions by federal employees with at least two different Department-level federal agencies, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, on Oct. 16, 2025, is an indication that agents at the scene were not operating without permission, their actions were part of an inter-agency operation that is not common procedure, and is vitally important to share with the public regarding the tactics being employed by federal law enforcement to conduct actions in the area and nationwide.
The stark difference between the accounts provided by federal agents and the body camera videos provided by the Oxnard Police Department, written statements from responding officers, and videos and interviews with other people and organizations is a clear indication of a potential abuse of federal law enforcement authority to shut down a local investigation into their actions.
That allegation is the subject of an official complaint filed with the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General.
The Inspector General Act of 1978 established nonpartisan offices within the federal government to provide independant oversight and objective investigations.
Of the over 70 inspector general positions that exist today, most are appointed by the President and require confirmation by the Senate.
In the first month of his second term, President Trump fired inspector generals at 17 different federal agencies and many positions remain vacant to this day.
The complaint filed regarding the actions of federal agents in October is not subject to federal disclosure laws until after it is closed so Your News Channel filed a request proactively seeking information about what the federal watchdog did after receiving the complaint.
In response, ICE's FOIA Office denied our request for an expedited answer in December of last year stating, "You failed to demonstrate a particular urgency to inform the public about the government activity involved in the request beyond the public’s right to know about government activity generally. Your letter was conclusory in nature and did not present any facts to justify a grant of expedited processing under the applicable standards."
"The complaint detailed allegations of violent actions, abuse of power, and providing knowingly false information to law enforcement by federal agents on Oct. 16, 2025," explained Your News Channel in its appeal of the decision filed the same day as the Dec. 15, 2025, denial. "Further information received since filing the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through state disclosure laws indicates multiple federal agents knowingly provided false information to investigators/dispatchers, unlawfully took over an investigation into their actions, transported the involved victim to another jurisdiction, and threatened him with prosecution."
Additionally, while the federal agency categorized the FOIA request as "conclusory in nature" as part of its justification to deny a rapid response, the request was technically for information generated by the Office of Inspector General investigating the complaint filed by Your News Channel.
In other words, Your News Channel can confidently conclude that the complaint is real because Your News Channel author filed it, personally.
What was being requested through the federal disclosure law and denied an expedited response was the nature of the federal watchdog's response to the complaint, not the allegations within the complaint.
Even if the complaint was conclusory in nature and there are extenuating circumstances not covered by Your News Channel or captured on camera, involved federal agencies have every reason to prove our coverage was and is inaccurate by investigating the complaint and providing their findings to the public.
"The information provided in the initial request clearly satisfied both conditions detailed in 6 C.F.R. § 5.5(e)(1)(i) and 6 C.F.R. § 5.5(e)(1)(ii) even if they were unsubstantiated claims lacking evidence," concluded Your News Channel in its appeal in December of last year. "The decision to deny the expedited request while ignoring the substantial evidence of wrongdoing is itself a demonstration of the damning nature of the information requested, an example of an ongoing threat to the victim, and a clear example of the urgent need to provide that information to the public."
