Pasco sex offender going to prison for injuring ICE agents during stop

A Pasco man has been sentenced to two years in prison for assaulting two Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officers who had an administrative warrant to arrest him for living unlawfully in the United States.

U.S. Judge Mary Dimke also sentenced Victor Lara-Lopez, 42, in Richland to three years probation and restitution of $10,306.

When Lara-Lopez assaulted the ICE officers he was on probation after serving a three-year prison sentence for second-degree child molestation by a person in a position of trust in Benton County. He is a citizen of Mexico.

The two ICE officers were watching what they thought might be his home on the 100 block of South Elm Street in Pasco about 5 a.m. on June 13, 2025, when they saw a pickup for Lara-Lopez’s flooring business across the street from the house. One officer turned on his emergency lights and pulled in behind the pickup and the second agent also turned on emergency lights and pulled in front of the pickup at an angle to block it in with a government SUV.

Both agents were wearing ICE-issued ballistic vests with “POLICE” patches on the front and back and one also had an ICE badge patch on the front of their vest, according to a court document. One was wearing a face mask.

ICE officers injured

Here’s what court documents say happened:

One of the agents ordered Lara-Lopez, who was in the driver’s seat of the pickup, to roll down the window, and he lowered it halfway.

The agent then ordered him to turn off the pickup, which had a noisy diesel engine that made conversation difficult.

Lara-Lopez refused and also refused to show identification.

He asked in Spanish, “Why do you need my name?” and then said, “You don’t need my name.”

One agent then asked if he was Victor Lara-Lopez and said she had a warrant for his arrest. The other agent recognized him from a driver’s license photo he had previously seen.

The female agent asked Lara-Lopez to step out of the pickup.

He asked to see the warrant first and the officer said she would show him once he got out.

Lara-Lopez began to roll up the window, but the female agent stepped on the pickup’s running board to try to keep the window down.

Lara-Lopez started to back up the pickup, as she reached through the window to take the keys from the ignition, but the pickup continued.

Both officers were struggling with Lara-Lopez through the half-closed window to gain control of his hands and the steering wheel.

After going backwards about a foot, Lara-Lopez began driving forward and both agents jumped away to avoid being crushed between the pickup and the government SUV.

Lara-Lopez veered the pickup onto the sidewalk, hitting the SUV, and pulling its front bumper off.

Offender arrested a month later

The two agents did not pursue him, but called Pasco Police Department for assistance.

The male officer had bruises consistent with his arm being in the window of the pickup and the female officer had pain, stiffness and loss of mobility in her left shoulder, which was in the window of the pickup as it drove away. Lara-Lopez was not arrested until a month later, despite efforts to find him by the U.S. Marshals Service, Homeland Security Investigations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to a court document.

He was spotted on July 15, 2025, when law enforcement officers saw him in the same flooring company pickup on Highway 12 between Walla Walla and Pasco, Wash., according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Eastern Washington.

A woman and her young son got out of the pickup when law enforcement stopped it, but Lara-Lopez refused to get out until he was told that a police dog had been called to respond, according to court documents. Lara-Lopez was prohibited from contact with children while on probation.

Pasco man ’should have complied’

“When defendant violates the law, he engages in whatever conduct necessary to evade apprehension, be it secreting himself away, assaulting law enforcement officers or fleeing the scene,” said Laurel Holland, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern Washington District in a court document.

Lara-Lopez’s attorney, Alex Hernandez III of Yakima, said in a court document that his client should have complied with the order of the masked ICE agent to get out of his pickup in June 2025.

But Lara-Lopez may have been driven by fear related to news articles of people being deported to countries other than their birth countries or fear that ICE agents lacked warrants for arrests.

“While not an excuse for Mr. Lara-Lopez’s conduct, what has occurred in this country with ICE arrests and deportations can explain why he chose to flee rather than be arrested,” according to Hernandez.

Pete Serrano, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern Washington district, pointed out in a statement that Lara-Lopez had been allowed to remain in the United States rather than being deported despite his child molestation conviction.

“This case highlights the importance of ICE’s work in our community,” Serrano said. “Here, ICE was removing a child sex offender who is not here lawfully from our community.”

The case was investigated by the FBI.

“Law enforcement officers put themselves in harm’s way every day to apprehend dangerous criminals and protect the American people,” said W. Mike Herrington, special agent in charge of the FBI Seattle field office.