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Photo by E.B McGovern Mark, a full-time Phoenix bounty hunter, stakes out an apartment complex for a "bail jumper" that his bond company needs to locate. There are about 40 bounty hunters operating in Arizona and about 1,500 nationwide, according to the National Institute of Bail Enforcement. |
By Kara Shire
After hours of watching and waiting, Russ and Mark suited up in their bulletproof vests and AGENT T-shirts, pulled out their handcuffs and handguns and rushed toward the northeast Phoenix apartment.
"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Russ shouted while sliding on his black leather gloves.
The hunted was "Bones," a toothless man arrested for assault and criminal damage who was bonded out of jail but failed to show up for court.
Russ and Mark asked that their last names and the name of the Phoenix bond company they work for not be used. They are full-time bounty hunters who spend their time looking for "skips" or "bail jumpers" for bail bond agents.
They are part of the underground network of bounty hunters, urban cowboys infiltrating the shady world of criminals. They also have become the focus of media and political debate, particularly after the killings earlier this year of an innocent Phoenix couple whose home was invaded by five men claiming to be bounty hunters.
Christopher Foote, 25, and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Spring Wright, were killed after a brief shootout. It turned out the men were not on a bounty hunt at all.
The five men are awaiting trial on murder charges, but the initital reports that they were bounty hunters heightened scrutiny of a profession few people know anything about.
There are about 40 bounty hunters operating in Arizona and about 1,500 nationwide, according to the National Institute of Bail Enforcement.
"This line of work is for a very select few people," Russ, 25, said while sitting in front of a Scottsdale convenience store with his bounty-hunting buddies. "You don't make a lot of money. You don't make any friends. You can't really have a life.
"You either are or you aren't made for this work. This isn't law enforcement and this isn't your everyday job. I just do it because I'm otherwise unemployable."
Russ, whose black goatee matches the color of his closely cropped hair, got lured into the bounty hunter world because he had been bonded out of jail a number of times by the company he now works for.
He and Mark begin their standard 54-hour week at 9 o'clock most mornings. The day is officially over at 6 p.m., but the hunt often does not end then. Overtime work is expected, although there is no extra pay. Mark and Russ sometimes put in 100 hours a week, and they each earn $350 a week.
"There's no such thing as you go out at 7 at night and, OK, now it's 1 a.m. and it's time to go home," Russ said.
As full-timers Russ and Mark are paid their weekly salary regardless of the number of skips they find. They don't have an expense account. They laughed when asked about benefits.
"We don't have the run-of-the-mill career here," Russ said.
On a recent afternoon Mark and Russ were on what seemed to be an impossible hunt. They were in a mall, sipping sodas, bickering and studying the information about "Bones" that was given to them by the bond company.
With no available photograph of the skip, all they had to go on was his description: a 5-foot-10-inch, 140-pound man with hazel eyes and a toothless smile. They also had a list of what promised to be bogus addresses.
Mark hopped into his red, beat-up Jeep Cherokee and headed for the first possible location while Russ drove the company car, a run-down, primer-gray Honda, to pick up the police report.
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Photo by E.B. McGovern
A "snitch" calls Mark and gives a clue in the search for "Bones." Snitches are saviors to bounty hunters. |
While smoking a chain of generic cigarettes and listening to his favorite country music station, Mark, a brown-haired, mustachioed ex-Marine, talked about his career change from a sheriff's deputy and prison guard to a bounty hunter.
"I used to want to be a cop ever since I was a kid," he said. "Now that I'm doing this I'd never want to do that. It's too political.
"(This job) is real simple. You know who you're looking for. I like what I'm doing and I'm not a baby sitter. I cannot stand sitting there for eight hours and listening to those assholes (prisoners) complain."
He has been a bounty hunter for about a year and said it offers a flexibility that is not allowed in law enforcement.
"Sometimes it's just a gut feeling (skips are) gonna be a piece of shit," he said. "In law enforcement you can't go on your gut. What I like about (bounty hunting), what I find intriguing, is that I can take this paper on a guy who's running and in a couple of days, or a couple of hours, you can put him back in jail. The tracking -- that's what I like."
The drive to northeast Phoenix led Mark to a dirt lot directly across the street from an apartment complex where he hoped "Bones" was hiding. He parked the Jeep and waited for Russ to catch up.
"This is what most days are like," Mark said. "You don't see this on 'The Fall Guy.'"
Forty minutes later, Mark decided to go in and talk to the apartment manager. He did not want to wait any longer.
The manager said she had never heard of "Bones."
Russ arrived and he and Mark checked on the apartment anyway.
People in the complex said they knew "Bones" but they hadn't seen him in weeks. Disappointed, Russ and Mark began to plan their next move.
Then a clue. A "snitch" called with a possible location on "Bones."
"Most of this stuff is luck and snitches," Russ said. "Thank God for the snitches. A lot of these people are screwing over their friends, their family. I mean we've got old ladies losing their homes."
Snitches are saviors to bounty hunters. They are usually people who have something to lose if the skip never turns himself in because they are the ones who paid the bail. The bail bond is issued after a friend or family member of a prisoner provides collateral to the bond company. Depending on the size of the bond, that collateral can be a stereo, a car or a house.
The next location is a tiny, run-down apartment complex in northeast Phoenix surrounded by pickups and semis and hidden behind a dirt lot and a gas station.
Although there is no Arizona law requiring it, a call is made to the police station to alert officers of the potential bust.
"Our policy is we call whatever agency and let them know we're watching," Russ said. "We don't need to call the police for most of the shit we do."
Mark added, "But we try to build a working relationship with them."
The two suited up in their bullet-proof vests, gunbelts and handcuffs. While guns may serve only as a scare tactic, carrying a weapon is a mandatory precaution when on the job, Russ said.
"We got 15-year-olds out here shooting people without thinking twice," he added.
The two made their way across the dirt lot to the skip's possible hideout.
"Once we get a location on them, me and Russ will go through the front and we shock them so much it takes a minute for them to figure out what's going on," Mark said. "We'll knock once and let them know who we are and then we kick in the door."
Russ added that the bust happens "so fast it'll make your head spin."
Their presence at the apartment complex produces some paranoid looks and fearful glances by mothers carrying children. Old men scatter on the sidewalk.
"Unlike the police we don't have backup," Russ said. "We deal with criminals straight-up. These people, most of them are dangerous, and if we get shot nobody cares. We have to think about it every time."
Mark and Russ were in their element. They strutted around the dilapidated complex looking for their man.
One young woman frantically shook her head, doing her best to convince the invaders that her boyfriend, pictured in a photo Mark was holding, was not the man they were seeking.
They agreed that the man in the photo didn't look old enough to be "Bones," but the adrenaline was still pumping and Mark and Russ were not ready to give up.
"I didn't get all dressed up for nothin'," Russ said.
But after another dead end, the two decided they had put in enough work for one day. It was 5:30 and time for dinner. The next search was for the nearest Denny's.
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Photo by E.B. McGovern
Suited up in bullet-proof vests, guns and handcuffs, Mark and Russ question neighbors about "Bones." Much of their time is spent interviewing people for information on the individuals they seek. |
In an 1872 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court backed bounty hunters' power and authority. The ruling claimed, in part, that bounty hunting was "likened to the re-arrest by the sheriff of an escaping prisoner" and that the agents "may break and enter his house" to retrieve the prisoner.
Although licensing is not required, most in the bounty hunting industry agree regulation through licensing is needed.
"This country is screwed up," said Ralph, a bounty hunter with eight years of experience, who asked that his real name not be used. "The police are really understaffed and underpaid and they can't possibly do the job of catching all the bad guys. It's a screwed up system but it's what we're stuck with."
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio agreed that the system needs help and he offered the paid services of his office to do background checks for licensing.
"There's a place for (bounty hunters)," Arpaio said. "We have 50,000 outstanding warrants -- we can't do the job ourselves."
There is a need, however, to create bounty-hunting licensing to eliminate convicted felons from the industry, he said.
Bill FitzGerald, Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley's spokesman, said Romley also sees a need for regulation.
"He (Romley) would prefer that, in the best of all possible worlds, that traditional law enforcement handle that kind of job rather than someone that has minimal training," FitzGerald said. "He would prefer they would be licensed and had a certain amount of training."
Arizona Sen. John Kaites, R-Glendale, has drafted legislation to be introduced in the Legislature. If passed, the bill would create licensing for bounty hunters.
Kaites said the bounty hunting industry is ripe for legislation and the goal of his legislation is to prevent future problems with bounty hunters.
"The goal is good," he said. "They fulfill a need in the criminal justice system but there needs to be oversight in that industry."
The drafted legislation would provide a list of requirements for licensed bounty hunters, including that they be at least 21 years old, U.S. citizens or legal residents and have good moral character.
Kaites said he is hoping Arizona will join Nevada, Connecticut and Indiana as the only states that regulate the bounty hunting industry. Florida has outlawed bounty hunting all together.
Four states, Oregon, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Illinois, have no bail system, technically outlawing the bounty hunting industry.
Warren Levicoff, a Pennsylvania bounty hunter and private investigator, has been in the business as a free-lancer for 16 years and said he understands the need for uniform licensing nationwide.
"I prefer to have laws," Levicoff said in a telephone interview. "I'd like to see licensing and I'd like to see laws governing bounty hunters. There's too many people out there that shouldn't be in the field, they're just not qualified and they have no training. There should be mandatory licensing and training."
Levicoff said there are few laws in Pennsylvania.
"We work on law precedence as opposed to laws," he said. "We're not working as police officers, we're working under private civil contract. When (a prisoner is) bailed out (of jail) a release is signed saying, 'If I don't show up for court the bail bondsman can send someone to get me,' and that's exactly what I (do.)"
Damien Scott, owner of U.S. Fugitive Service in Reno, Nev., has 19 years of bounty hunting experience. He had been on 1,100 hunts. Scott spent nine years as a Marine and three years as a Texas police officer. He recently helped develop and push through Nevada laws regulating the bounty hunting industry.
"Nevada now has the toughest standard in the nation," Scott said in a telephone interview. "Like most states (Arizona) has next to nothing. They don't have any particular standards for bail enforcement agents and that's wrong. That's just flat wrong."
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Photo by E.B. McGovern
While guns may serve only as a scare tactic, carrying a weapon is a mandatory precaution when on the job, according to Russ. |
Nevada law requires a bounty hunter to be at least 21 years old with a high school diploma or equivalent education. Psychiatric and written exams are required along with at least 80 hours of training and countless other requirements.
Mark and Russ said they support regulatory laws even though an Arizona law resembling the Nevada law would exclude some of their partners.
Mark said background checks, concealed weapons permits and training should be mandatory licensing requirements for bounty hunters.
"That's the sad thing, there's no licensing for this," Mark said. "You can go out and do it if you can find someone to say, 'OK, you can be a bounty hunter. Here's my file.'
"The bounty hunters that scare me are the ones who think they can do it all on their own. You gotta work as a team."
Russ, in his usual sarcastic tone, said, "Any asshole can walk into a bond company and do this. There's too many loose cannons out there giving us a bad name."
He said that on one of his first jobs, the bail bond company gave him a vest and "sent me out with some biker guy and we went bounty huntin'. We kicked in doors and whatnot. At the end of the night, he said, 'I got to pick up a couple pounds of speed, do you want to come?'
"I've been trying to bring a little bit of professionalism to the company."
