Man who shot Prosser officer 7 years ago sentenced for ‘brazen acts of violence’

A 26-year-old is spending more than two decades behind bars after he shot two men, including a Prosser police officer in what prosecutors called “brazen acts of violence.”

Abdiel Vargas said Wednesday that the prison term is just the beginning of him taking responsibility for opening fire into an apartment and then shooting Officer Antonio Bustamante during a chase in 2019.

“Ultimately my ignorance and immaturity could have taken lives that day,” he said during his sentencing hearing. “There has never been a moment that I have stopped wishing that I could apologize.”

At the start of his trial, Vargas pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree assault and to attempted first-degree burglary in connection to the shootings at the Canyon Park apartments.

Vargas and another man had gone to the apartment building in August 2019 intending to rob a man, but instead Vargas shot the man’s neighbor and at Bustamante.

He faced about 18 to 23 years in prison. Both sides asked for the maximum end of the sentencing range.

Judge David Petersen followed the recommendation. He also ordered Vargas to pay about $10,000 in restitution.

Deputy Prosecutor Taylor Anderson said Vargas was running from Bustamante when he fired 10 to 20 rounds at the officer.

“The fact that no one was killed was pretty miraculous,” she said.

Bustamante told Judge David Petersen that the shooting left him with more than just physical injuries. He didn’t return home the same person. He became hyper-vigilant and withdrawn, eventually turning to alcohol to cope.

He went into treatment last year and discovered he had post-traumatic stress disorder. The momentary act of violence had ripple effects in every aspect of his life, including his relationships with his family and his job.

“I survived the shooting, but surviving and recovering are not the same thing,” he said.

Matured while in jail

Defense attorney Tim Dickerson said he had watched his client mature in the past four years, he said. He didn’t want to defend his client’s actions or minimize the damage.

“The criminal justice system is not built to make whole the victims of crimes,” he said.

But he noted that his client has matured from a “confused young man into an articulate and thoughtful adult.”

“He wasn’t raised to do things like that,” he said. “He was raised in a family with strong values, strong religious beliefs and strong morals, and he strayed from that in his youth. He made some terrible, terrible choices.”

Petersen also noted the support for Vargas including the two corrections officers who noted that he had changed during his nearly seven years in the Benton County jail.

“What they said is that when you got there you were a handful, and then you had a change,” he said. “If it’s God, fantastic. If it’s moral values, fantastic.”

Brazen act of violence

The first call to 911 in August 2019 came from a 23-year-old woman about 1 a.m. when two men started knocking on her door and jiggling the door handle at the Canyon Park Apartments.

Her 24-year-old boyfriend recognized Vargas and Isaiah M. Colley standing outside his door and had been tipped off the day before that they were coming to rob him.

But it was a neighbor next door who ended up wounded in the arm when he came to a window to investigate the noise.

Officer Bustamante arrived and was chasing Vargas, when Vargas turned and shot at him.

Colley pleaded guilty in 2021 to illegally possessing a gun. He was sentenced to a year and 10 months in prison.