Immigration authorities have arrested one occupant of a car that allegedly tried to ram law enforcement in Colorado Springs on Thursday.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Francisco Zapata-Pacheco on Thursday afternoon, an unnamed agency spokesman said Friday. Earlier that day, an ICE agent fired three bullets into a vehicle in which Zapata-Pacheco was a passenger, after the vehicle attempted to hit agents as it fled a “targeted enforcement operation” in Colorado Springs.
The vehicle’s two occupants then abandoned it and fled on foot, ICE said yesterday. No one was injured in the incident.
The driver of the vehicle, identified by ICE as Jose Mendez-Chavez, is still at large. The ICE spokesperson said in a statement that Mendez-Chavez has been deported six times before.
ICE stated in its release that Mendez-Chavez had been convicted of child abuse and domestic violence, but The Denver Post was not able to independently confirm that. A man with the same name pleaded guilty in 2019 to reckless endangerment, court records show, after being initially charged with misdemeanor child abuse.
Zapata-Pacheco has no criminal record in Colorado, according to a records search.
According to the Colorado Rapid Response Network, ICE attempted to stop the vehicle at a Colorado Springs construction site. One other person was briefly detained in the area but was released, the group said.
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