Wanted Dead or Alive: Bounty Hunters of Today

Imagine you are at home, your quiet peaceful home. You check all the windows and doors to ensure that they are closed and locked and your family is secure. You pat the family dog on the head as you retreat to your room, and check each of the bedrooms along the way just to make sure that everyone is exactly where they are supposed to be. Finally, you reach your room, your bed, your pillow, and within minutes you’re fast asleep. You are not at all prepared for what is about to take place. Unsure of the time, you are startled awake by a loud noise. You sit up in your bed and look around the room to see if something fell. A few seconds pass and you hear voices, but you can’t quite make out what they’re saying. You decide to investigate and make sure everything is alright. You unwillingly start to roll out of bed and slip your feet into your slippers. Before you have a chance to get up out of your bed, you hear a loud bang, then wood crashing, and as the hair on the back of your neck stands up you hear the unmistakable sound of your front door hitting the floor. Your instantly begin to panic and more thoughts than your brain is even able to comprehend at one time race through your head, and you quickly settle in on the only one that makes sense, a home invasion. Your first instinct is to protect your family. As you reach for the gun in the nightstand you hear loud booming voices yelling, doors opening, children crying, your children, and footsteps coming toward your room. The mental image you get of the person coming toward you is of a man that must be at least ten feet tall. Suddenly you hear your bedroom door fly open and you see a figure in your doorway. He is not ten feet tall, but his silhouette lends you the notion that he’s much bigger than you. As if his sheer size isn’t intimidating enough, you realize that he has a gun and a flashlight pointed straight at you. You listen for other voices, trying to count the number of people that have invaded your home. You hear your children crying and the voices of at least three other men. You’re caught like a deer in the headlights and sit frozen in amazement that something of this magnitude could happen to you. Your responses are still slow, but the uninvited guest standing in your bedroom is yelling something at you but you don’t understand what he is telling you. He rushes in your direction and your instinct is to run, but he’s too fast. Within seconds he snatches you off of your bed and throws you face first into your bedroom floor. You look to the bed to see your wife in tears with a gun pointed at her head, and your mind immediately starts flashing horrifying images of what your kids are being forced to endure. The man on top of you has straddled you and is forcefully pushing his knee into your back to hold you down on the floor. He grabs your left arm and twists it forcefully behind your back, and shortly after he pulls your right arm in the same fashion. You feel cold metal against your wrists, and hear the faint sound of a click followed by the tightening of what could only be handcuffs. By now your mind has stopped racing, and where you once felt fear, you now feel shame, disappointment, and failure. You couldn’t protect your family. Did I catch your attention; instill fear into your heart? I surely hope so. What was just described to you is what some people would say is probably one of the most traumatic events that you can ever experience in your life, a home invasion. Unfortunately, this was not a home invasion. Instead, the small army of gun wielding men that forced their way into your home in the dead of night and terrorized you and your family are none other than a group of bounty hunters. For the small percentage of the population that are not familiar with the term bounty hunter, or their main purpose. Present day bounty hunters are hired guns or goons for bail bondsmen. They are nothing like their counter parts of days old that sought after hardened criminals i.e. bank robbers, murderers, and rapists. Today, they no longer seek out Bonnie and Clyde’s; they are simply out to make a quick buck, no matter the cost. The standard commission for apprehending a fugitive and giving him a free ride to the local jail is a mere 10% of what the bond amount is set at. Many would agree that the average return would be $500 or less for each fugitive. More often than not this has to be split between more than just one bounty hunter. Those that are in agreement would be unequivocally, without a doubt, 100% right. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of investigating that takes place before the barrage of door kicking begins. Please don’t misunderstand; there are several calls made, a few Google searches, and an occasional skip tracing attempt is made to locate the poor unfortunate and unsuspecting soul that forgot to go to court. Yes, this is all it takes to incite a small militia of men with guns blazing to invade your home, forget to go to court. Now in most cases, missing court results in the judge issuing a bench warrant for your arrest and sends you something in the mail, the charge being Failure to Appear, this is a misdemeanor warrant. As warrant classifications go, this is not really that big of a deal, even the real cops wouldn’t consider kicking in your front door for anything less than a felony. Generally, they wait for you to be pulled over on a traffic stop, at which time you’re arrested and held accountable for your actions. Let me inform everyone out there, if you miss court for whatever reason, you can call and reschedule a court date in most cases. Ignorance is not bliss in the eyes of the law, and if you are pulled over and taken to jail, what could have been taken care of in a few hours turns into an expensive and time consuming project. Now, these “goons” are contracted out by bail bondsmen or loan sharks that act as a means to an end in your time of need. The amount that you pay a bail bondsman to turn in your get out of jail for free card is 10-25% of what the judge thinks is necessary to ensure your return to court. This amount is almost always more than what the average person has access to, and is dependent upon the charges and the intensity of the crime that you are accused of. A charge of shoplifting would carry a fine or a much lower bond in comparison to a charge of murder. In most cases if your bond is $20,000, the bail bondsman will ask for $2,000 and collateral, usually your home, a co-signer, an entire book of references with phone numbers and addresses, and an extensive history of you yourself. Generally speaking, someone with a bond of $20,000 or more do not jump bail because of what they themselves or a family member stand to lose. However, there are occasions where people are oblivious to the consequences of their actions and they make the unwise decision to run. When they make this very insane decision, the bail bondsman is now indebted to the courts for the full amount of your bond. For obvious reasons, they are going to hunt you down. Clearly, shoplifters and petty criminals are not listed in the category where a bond with a co-signer or collateral would be necessary. Shoplifters and other petty criminals normally don’t “jump bail”. More often than not, they forget they had court or something outside of their control impeded them from making an appearance. This seemingly is an honest mistake; however, this does not stop the bondsman from unleashing the dogs on you, and the game of cloak and dagger begins. Of the 50 states and the District of Colombia within the United States, bounty hunting is only allowed in 44. Surprisingly, 15 of the 44 states that do allow bounty hunting do not require any type of certification or formal training to become a bounty hunter. In essence, you could be living in a state where your next door neighbor, the one that you believe to be somewhat unstable, could be a bounty hunter. In an effort to subdue the panic that I inadvertently struck into everyone, most states DO NOT allow bounty hunters to carry guns or use deadly force. However, at the risk of striking panic into everyone yet again, I do feel the need to inform you most states have passed laws allowing a person to acquire a concealed handgun permit; thus making the states effort to disarm bounty hunters futile. While there are few laws set in place to protect bounty hunters, there are even fewer laws governing their actions or methods by which they choose to apprehend a fugitive. In fact when you research what laws bounty hunters have to adhere to, you will find three. The first law being that they cannot enter an occupants home without their consent, the second being that they cannot wear a uniform, badge, insignia, or other symbol that would make it possible to mistake them for or difficult to discern them from a law enforcement official, and finally the third law stating that they cannot use deadly force. Notably, bounty hunters break the first two laws that govern them on an almost daily basis. They have been known to kick in a front door if they think their payday is waiting on the other side, and most often without identifying themselves. Bounty hunters also wear badges, bullet proof vests, and carry weapons that to the naked and untrained eye could easily be mistaken for the standard issue attire and equipment of almost any law enforcement agency. Their bullet proof vests and clothing often say things like AGENT, or the first initial of the company they’re working for followed by PD, leading you to believe that they are with the police department. They also use their power and brute force to their advantage. While bullying people is not against the law, who among the general population is going to attempt to inspect the clothing of someone that is screaming at you with a gun pointed at your head? The general consensus is to do what they say and ask questions later. Bounty hunters flagrantly break the rules and face no repercussions. Ultimately, they are regular citizens, with no formal law enforcement or criminal justice training. They are not above the law as they undoubtedly believe that they are. They are nothing more that simple minded individuals with a couple of get out of jail free cards that have been granted permission to become modern day vigilantes. Many would say that I am not giving credit where credit is due, and that I am only “harping” on the negative, and maybe I am. Undeniably, bounty hunters do catch criminals that could pose a threat to our society. If given the choice of kicking down the door of a murderer and hauling him off to jail, or sit idly by and do nothing, I would without question say kick the door in. Therein lies the problem, what guarantee is there that the door being kicked in is that of a murderer, or that of an innocent bystander? Most bounty hunters utilize a tool unfamiliar to most called skiptracing. This is a search done via the internet using your name and other personal information thru a third party company’s database that is supposed to return information about your whereabouts, past addresses, phone numbers, employers, and family members. You would think that anyone having this information and providing it without your permission to anyone that is willing to pay for it would be illegal as well as a violation of the civil rights of not only you, but anyone associated with you. Puts a whole new prospective on guilt by association doesn’t it? Let’s suppose that the information gathered and compiled in this database is wrong. What happens then? The bounty hunters are not armed or built to deal with what ifs. They simply take the information handed them and act on it and at times without regard to the individual or the lives they are about to effect. The possibilities of what can happen are endless, the most common being they have wrong information. They routinely go to the wrong house, or wrong employer. They make a habit of harassing family members and friends. If you’re unfortunate enough to have a similar name or to be in the wrong place at the wrong time you’re life could be turned upside down and ruined in a matter of seconds, and you have no recourse to correct the long term effects or damage done as a result of the situation. The repercussions of their actions are not going to be felt by the bounty hunters. Still not convinced? Maybe we should use the same idea, but in a different situation, something that more people can possibly relate to. Your favorite aunt needs to buy a car, and her credit isn’t up to par and the bank is asking for a co-signer. Your aunt comes to you, and you’re cautious about lending your name, but she’s family and you do it. You sign on the dotted line and are the silent owner of a brand new car. The economy being what it is today, your aunt is unable to make the payments on the car. The bank has repossessed the car and ruined your credit. They also inform you that even though they have repossessed the car, you’re still liable for the balance left owing on the car after they sell it, which could be thousands of dollars. A fair assessment would be that you are angry and want your money back, and should be able to use any means necessary to recover it. Should you be able to solicit and send a group of hired guns to your now not so favorite aunts’ house and bring her to you so that you can shake her down for the money that she owes you? I should think not. In the eyes of the law, that would be considered a crime….felony kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, harassment, assault with a deadly weapon, breaking and entering, trespassing, terroristic threat or any number of other serious crimes punishable by law…….so I ask what the difference is between this and what bounty hunters do on a daily basis. There isn’t one.