The Life of a Bounty Hunter Can Be One of Daily Danger
An article on AZCentral discusses the recent deaths of two bounty hunters in Phoenix. The two bounty hunters were attempting to apprehend a suspect who had skipped out on bail and failed to show up for a hearing on weapons and drug charges. The bondsmen had located the suspect and had him in cuffs but during the apprehension were unfortunately gunned down by another unidentified person who then fled. The cuffed gentleman was later caught at a local apartment, but the gunman is still at large and being sought by police.
The life of a bounty hunter is one of danger. If you’ve ever wondered how bail bonds work…a bail bondsman or bail bond agent is a person or company that pledges money or property as bail for the later appearance of an accused person in court. The way this works is that the bond agent company has an agreement with the local courts to pay if a defendant for whom they are responsible does not appear for their scheduled court appearance. Of course the posting of bail so that a defendant can be released prior to their court data comes with a non-returnable fee. This fee goes to pay for bail bondsmen who keep close tabs on defendants in order to ensure that court dates are met and/or for a bounty hunter to recover and arrest the defendant in the case that they skip out and miss their hearing date. If the bounty hunter can find and arrest the person the the bail bond company can recover the money they owe the court. Either way, the goal of the bail bond company is to ensure that the defendant gets to their court hearing. In Arizona bounty hunters are not required to be trained or educated. Bounty hunters can be outfitted just like policemen with bulletproof vests and weapons. Like police, bounty hunters in Arizona can arrest defendants. However, unlike police they are not hindered by needing warrants or subpoenas.
The bail bonds company that the two bounty hunters worked for handles 600-700 clients a month of which they usually have 8-10 clients on the run at any given time. A bounty hunter is identical to police in the eyes of a defendant on the run. As such, bounty hunters take on all the same risks as police in apprehending possible dangerous criminals.