‘I’m gonna shoot you.’ Prosecutors release video of shootout as WA gang member sentenced

An Eastern Washington man has been sentenced to more than 20 years in federal prison after a close-range shootout with an undercover federal law enforcement officer in November 2021.

A video from a camera inside a car being driven by an undercover officer shows Randy Coy James Holmes, 25, of Spokane, pull a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and point it at the officer’s head.

Shots are then heard as both shoot at each other outside the car, with both of them hit and the agent left permanently injured.

Holmes, a member of the Sureno gang, was looking to obtain a firearm for strong-arm robberies and had contacted two informants to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Washington.

The ATF agent planned to sell Holmes an inoperable gun and then arrest him. Holmes had offered to pay with an ounce of methamphetamine.

They met at a Motel 6 parking lot, and Holmes got into the undercover officer’s car. The undercover officer told Holmes that he was not comfortable with two other people, also gang members, waiting nearby in Holmes’s Dodge Charger.

One of the gang members had handed Holmes a gun shortly before he got out of the Dodge, according to court documents.

Holmes initially started to get out of the agent’s car to “tell the homies.” But then he turned around and pointed the handgun at the agent’s head.

“Give it to me now… I’m gonna shoot you in the f’ing head ese … I ain’t f’ing playing with you,” Holmes said.

The undercover agent raised his hands above his head and told Holmes the gun he wanted to purchase was in the back of the car.

Holmes got out of the car and ran around to the back of the car to get the gun, and the agent got out of the car with his firearm. He ordered Holmes to drop his semiautomatic handgun.

Instead, Holmes began firing at the agent, hitting him. The agent returned fire, hitting Holmes.

Other ATF agents quickly arrived and took the undercover agent to the hospital and provided life-saving aid to Holmes, according to federal prosecutors.

The agent, whose identity has not been made public, said in a statement to the court Thursday that his lower leg was shattered and another bullet entered his left hip, exiting through his upper thigh. It was inches away from being a fatal wound, he said.

His foot remains permanently numb.

At the time of the shooting, his wife was nine-months pregnant with their fifth child, he said.

The night of the shooting the agent knew that he and Holmes “both narrowly escaped death and it was a miracle, true grace” that both survived.

He said that he has returned to work but the shooting changed him.

“Pretty much everywhere I go I carry a gun now and I didn’t do that before,” he said. “I’m hyper aware of my surroundings all the time now. I already was hyper aware as I’ve been a cop or military my entire adult life, but it’s more intense now.”

He said he has forgiven Holmes, but told U.S. Judge Thomas Rice that Holmes needed to be locked away from society “long enough to ensure he will no longer be a threat to every citizen he encounters.”

Holmes, a convicted felon, was being supervised by two separate courts and was living in a halfway house after being released from federal prison at the time he went looking for a gun to buy for strong-arm robberies, said assistant U.S. Attorney Caitlin Baunsgard, who led the prosecution on the case.

“This tragic case demonstrates the danger and violence that too frequently occurs when convicted felons possess firearms and engage in illegal drug trafficking,” said Vanessa Waldref, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington. “I am grateful for the exceptional courage and bravery of law enforcement officers, who put their personal safety at risk to protect our community.”