Bounty hunters breaking into your home

[MillCreek]

https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article230692964.html

So I have not done any research, but I wonder about the legalities of a homeowner shooting a bounty hunter making an unannounced dynamic entry into your home.

[HeroHog]

In a case like this one, they would be looking down the barrel of a loaded and cocked gun.

[dogmush]

I wouldn't necessarily call that an "unannounced dynamic entry". After the 15 min or so it took him to figure out his breaching tool it was pretty announced. And a slow wander through the house is not very dynamic.

Regardless,  I probably would have called 911, explained the situation clearly to the operator,  then told the "bounty hunters" if they breach, they die.  In that situation, with warning to set up and load, none of them clear the door's fatal funnel.

Bounty hunters get away with some crazy *expletive deleted*it because, by and large, they operate with criminals and in ghettos. So folks aren't used to resisting with force, and most people are willing to look the other way if a criminal's rights are a little stepped on.

[Ben]

I would generally follow Dogmush's recommendation, however this part bothered me greatly:

A police supervisor at the scene told the bond agents that police officers could not compel the family to open their doors. Soon after, the supervisor ordered responding officers to leave the scene, Pierre said in the letter. Officers were called for a second time, but waited outside the home as the bond agents rummaged inside. They left again.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article230692964.html#storylink=cpy

Cops were there and left, giving the bailbondsmen free rein. Seems like calling 911 wouldn't have done much good. Telling them you would shoot them if they enter might, but given the cops' response, the homeowner might just be the one arrested.

Second part that bothered me was that it was over $750 and a freakin' traffic violation.

[dogmush]

I would generally follow Dogmush's recommendation, however this part bothered me greatly:

Cops were there and left, giving the bailbondsmen free rein. Seems like calling 911 wouldn't have done much good. Telling them you would shoot them if they enter might, but given the cops' response, the homeowner might just be the one arrested.

Second part that bothered me was that it was over $750 and a freakin' traffic violation.

I would only call 911 so there was a timestamped recording of me telling them they would get shot before they "breeched".  I wouldn't actually expect the cops to do anything, especially not in the Miami area.  There would also be a recording of my explaining to their team exactly what M855 is going to do to their Sportsman's Warehouse bought Level II vests.  After all I have plenty of time to go switch mags  from my soft points while he finger-*expletive deleted*s that breeching tool.

The fine print is thus:

When you bond out of jail, as an alleged criminal, one of the things required is that you implicitly give bond agents the right to come into your home without a warrant and retrieve you.  That's what the bond agents were yelling about with "This is the address on the bond".  It's also likely why the PoPo didn't do anything.  The agents showed them a bond with that address listed.

If, however, the miscreant gives a false address problems arise.  As a homeowner, and not a miscreant, you are under no legal obligation to let bond agents in, nor to passively allow your home to be invaded.  It is up to the Courts, and the Bond Agents, to do their due diligence and be SURE the miscreant they are seeking is there.  Note that the laws and cases covering this use words like "certain" when talking about knowledge of the miscreants presence.  Reasonable Suspicion and Probable Cause don't cut it for Bond Agents.

Unfortunately, if you have a criminal cousin and he put your address down so he can skip bond, it'll be REAL hard to convince Agents at your door at 2200 that's the case.  I imagine pretty much everyone says some version of "Didindu don't live here!".  SO you have cases like this, where the Bond agents push beyond their authority, PoPo do the minimum check on the paperwork and the family's lawyer is going to drop them when they find that the bond company doesn't have enough assets to make suing worth it.  Also, as I pointed out, the demographic whose cousin lists them as an address on a bond is kinda self selecting.  

It would be pretty funny to see someone put down the address to the local Outlaws or Hell's Angels club house and watch Paul Blart and Screechy the Admin Assistant "breach" it.


Edited to fix [BB] tags

[Ben]

The fine print is thus:

All good points. One of the more important being the "self-selecting". I'll just add another "however" to keep the debate going. 

However... This could easily go from "self-selecting" to "innocent person's wrong address picked out of thin air". Or, as you correctly point out, the result of potentially sloppy work on verification for the warrant. Much like a no-knock warrant by the cops, only in some ways to me this is worse because there is a higher probability of the "breaching team" being composed of knuckleheads if it's bail bondsmen vs if it's cops.

I freely admit that the probability of this happening to a regular Suburban Joe minding his own business is slim, but slim chances are why we (people like those of us on APS) keep fire extinguishers and carry guns. We potentially end up with the same result though if we defend ourselves - us being the ones locked up. If you shoot a cop doing a no-knock, there's a 99.5% chance you're screwed. I'm not sure what the probability of being screwed is if you shoot one of these "agents". Of course they weren't doing a true no-knock here, which might actually make it harder for you to defend yourself. Maybe another good reason for door armor.

[dogmush]

At least from what I can gather, bond agents operate on a kind of "all or nothing".

IF the miscreant they are looking at is there, and it's the address on the bond, and the miscreant has some legal authority to waive rights over that property they can go in, legally, without a warrant.  Stopping them from doing so could garner some version of Obstruction charges.

If those conditions are NOT there (as was the case in the above) they are private agents doing an armed home invasion.  Now in the case above the cops used their discretion to not intervene and then leave, but had the homeowners reacted as they should have, FL's strong private property laws would kick in.  Interestingly, even if the cousin HAD been home at the address that he listed on the bond, if the story told by the homeowners is true (the miscreant hadn't lived there for 20 years) then the bond agents STILL didn't have authority to go in, as the miscreant couldn't  sign away his uncle's private property rights.

Under the law it's entirely the responsibility of the Bond Agent to ensure that 1. the bonded individual actually resides at the address, and 2. that the bonded individual is actually at the address at the time they go in.  The standard is actually higher for bond agents then LEO's serving no-knocks at the wrong address.

Of course, there's legal rights, and there's what you can do at zero dark 30 when you have guns and they don't.

[MechAg94]

He said when someone is arrested, they give police an address. If Gabriel used Colas’ address, he said bond agents can assume it’s his address.

“It’s not like they picked a random house and went out and said this guy is staying here,” he said. “If he used his cousin’s address on his arrest record, you can make an assumption that that’s his address.”

This is the bond agent association guy talking.  IMO, this is BS.  They can't just make assumptions and go charging in.  They don't know the address wasn't picked at random.  That is just more assumption.  Could have been someone they knew or heard of.  Could have been someone they delivered a pizza to.  Could be they knew the street and picked a house number at random because they forgot.


15 minutes is plenty of time to open the safe and pull out the M1A SOCOM and have a 308 ready for action.  Though M855 should be more than enough. 

And IMO, the cops being there and then leaving makes them liable by providing official support or sanction for what was done.  I doubt the courts would agree. 

[MechAg94]

The Fourth Amendment right to protection against illegal search and seizures does not apply for private entities like bounty hunters, Johnson said.

“Legal guidelines are all based upon that surety contract,” he said. “By that person signing that surety contract, they have in essence waived that Fourth Amendment right.”

Here is another quote.  It assumes the homeowner or resident is the one who gave the address.  In this case, it was not.

[AmbulanceDriver]

Yeah. Someone trying that at Casa Driver would be catching some 00 buck with their teeth.

We've had a collection company rep show up at our place looking for the previous owners once. Guy was pleasant, didn't know there was a. 45 on the hip he couldn't see. Went away when I told him we'd owned the house for x years, and the last direction we had known the previous owners to be heading towards was Long Beach, Washington, and have a good day.  We also know they got in some criminal level legal trouble, so wouldn't be surprised to have a bail bondsman show up either.

ETA: Apparently OR is one of four states that completely outlaws bail bondsmen and bounty hunters.... Didn't know that...

[Hawkmoon]

I freely admit that the probability of this happening to a regular Suburban Joe minding his own business is slim, but slim chances are why we (people like those of us on APS) keep fire extinguishers and carry guns. We potentially end up with the same result though if we defend ourselves - us being the ones locked up. If you shoot a cop doing a no-knock, there's a 99.5% chance you're screwed. I'm not sure what the probability of being screwed is if you shoot one of these "agents". Of course they weren't doing a true no-knock here, which might actually make it harder for you to defend yourself. Maybe another good reason for door armor.

I disagree. Look at all the documented cases of the police serving warrants (by unannounced, no-knock entries at oh-dark-thirty -- how does that qualify as "serving" a warrant?) at the wrong address. The Cato Institute maintains a running log of such incidents. It's ... sobering.

[Boomhauer]

A bounty hunter is going to have a Very Bad No Good Horrible Day/Night trying that *expletive deleted*it in this area on the wrong house and the cops aren’t going to care since many of the BH types are not exactly the best people either.

Anybody remember this? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2019/01/john-boch/video-armned-virginia-bounty-hunters-grabbed-the-wrong-man/amp/

[Hawkmoon]

https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article230692964.html

So I have not done any research, but I wonder about the legalities of a homeowner shooting a bounty hunter making an unannounced dynamic entry into your home.

The consensus of a couple of attorneys on another forum where this case is being discussed is that the homeowner has a good cause for action against the bounty hunters, and very possibly also against the police. The alleged evil-doer who skipped out on his $750 parking ticket may have signed away his right to not have the "bail enforcement agents" enter his home, but this wasn't his home and the homeowners didn't sign any such contract. The fact the bail agents "assumed" that the address the evil-doer gave to be correct is, in the opinion of a couple of lawyers, legally flawed. They have to perform their due diligence and verify that (1) the address they are raiding really is his home address, AND (2) that there's a reasonable probability that he's there when they raid the place.

In this case, I think the police also dropped the ball. It's not enough to confirm that there's a warrant. The police should have at least asked the questions, "Have you verified that this is really the perp's address?" and "Have you confirmed that he's probably inside the house right now?"