“It’s not like the Old West,” said our instructor near the beginning of the required two hours of Orientation and Ethics. On the first day of class, he wore a cap with the Daredevil’s “DD” insignia and a bright red Elmo hoodie. It was just me, a small and incredibly bubbly woman, a young guy who had been dragooned by his friend to sign up, and my future partner, Dodson: black, 25, close to six feet one and 130 pounds soaking wet. Yet the Virginia class I attended had a surprising lack of beefed-up wannabe cops. Two studies by criminal-justice eggheads confirm what most probably imagine when it comes to BEAs: They’re overwhelmingly white married men over the age of 36 with either a military or private-investigation background. So the bondsman offers the same 10 percent fee to independent contractors (that’s us) to recover the client before the forfeiture deadline. If Dave skips court, the bondsman has several weeks to return him, or lose all $1,500-that's called a forfeiture. The bondsman gets his money back if his client (that's Dave) shows up to court. If that bail is paid by a bondsman-that's called a surety bond-the bondsman takes a 10 percent fee from Dave (or more likely, a family member, like Dave’s father) and puts up the rest.
Say someone-let’s call him Dave-is arrested for possession of heroin. Most others make far less but set their own hours, and, in the vast majority of cases, haven’t yet quit their day jobs. The best in the business are able to make a decent living, although breaking six figures is unlikely.
#Bounty hunters com professional#
The Professional Bail Agents of the United States, a Florida-based industry organization, puts the number at 15,000. Since the 1980s, the completely unverifiable number of working bounty hunters ranges between 2,500 to 10,000. Hell, we still hadn’t caught Dave, whom we’d been obsessively chasing since our first day on the job and who'd become something of a white whale for us. The worst part was, we had a dozen slim manila folders containing equally frustrating cases. But it was telling me one thing: This legless fugitive is gonna outrun us. We were noobs crawling our way through the day, and my gut, bloated by drive-through stakeout fare, was corseted in the bulletproof vest. Veterans of the field know this intuition, this instinct, comes with experience. Honestly, a part of me thought we might be screwed the moment we spoke to his neighbor. Playing nice with tight-fisted bondsmen or uncooperative citizens. The classic Hemingway line about how “ there is no hunting like the hunting of man”-a favorite among the profession’s sensationalists-hardly ever applies. No cold-blooded Rambos with sunglasses, barbed-wire stubble, and a trenchcoat. There’s the occasional thrilling chase, but rarely any shootout.
#Bounty hunters com tv#
It turns out that the actual work of a bounty hunter is nothing like it is on TV or in the movies. It was a pretty dull conversation-he declined an invitation to discuss the issue in person and told us to fuck off. hadn’t worn out his welcome was a topless joint. One of the few neighborhood establishments where Joe Jr. The bar exercised its right to refuse service, permanently. allegedly slammed a hollow limb on the countertop and insisted it be filled knee-high with booze like an improvised bierstiefel. We expanded our search to bars within shambling distance of the family residence. Same square dance-a grunt, a call, a shrug. It was a couple of weeks later when we made another pass at the house. Eventually, one officer asked if me and Dodson couldn’t follow other leads for the time being. used his considerable weight to physically assault one of us upon entry…well, then they could turn it into a police matter. In a whisper session, the officers said that they couldn’t provide direct assistance in searching the premises. The police stood just a few feet away, silently assessing the situation as I tried various sales tactics. was on his front lawn, screaming in my face.
According to the officer, civil servants and emergency personnel weren’t allowed to keep him separated from the deadly weapons for any length of time since, legally speaking, they were a part of his body.īy the time a second officer approached, Joe Sr. got to fighting, he’d unlash the hard plastic limbs and wield them like cudgels. The problem with Joe Jr., he said, wasn’t the drinking. “Oh, nice,” he deadpanned, after being told of the assault charge.
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