"Like other young women she knew who lived on the South Side of Chicago, Marimar Martinez carried a handgun at the bottom of her purse. The gun, a Smith & Wesson pistol for which she had a concealed-carry license, was usually strapped into a neon-pink harness. 'It's a girl gun,' she told me recently. Martinez is thirty-one and works as a teaching assistant at a Montessori school."
"That's where the gun was on Saturday, October 4, 2025. Martinez woke up to a warm, sunlit morning. She filled a wading pool in the yard for her two dogs, Pancho and Gordo, then sorted through old clothes and shoes to donate to a nearby church. She loaded them in the back of her Nissan Rogue and put her purse on the seat beside her."
"President Donald Trump had recently begun deploying immigration officers to cities across the country. Four weeks earlier, agents had arrived in Chicago with military fatigues, face masks, armored vehicles, and rifles. Helicopters and drones whirred overhead."
Marimar Martinez, a 31-year-old teaching assistant in Chicago, legally carried a concealed handgun in her purse for self-protection after her sister experienced an attempted carjacking. On October 4, 2025, while driving to donate clothes to a church, Martinez noticed a silver Chevy Tahoe ahead and recognized it as belonging to immigration enforcement. President Trump had recently deployed DHS agents to cities nationwide, with Chicago receiving officers equipped with military gear, armored vehicles, and helicopters. Martinez's case provides insight into recent DHS shooting incidents and the smear campaigns that typically follow such encounters.
Read at The New Yorker
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