Man Shot in Error by Bounty Hunter

Hawthorne police briefly detained two bounty hunters whose attempt to capture a fugitive ended with the accidental shooting of a bystander.

David Villanueva, 25--who had been standing next to a friend wanted in Virginia on suspicion of grand theft--was hospitalized at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance. He was listed in grave but stable condition and is expected to survive a gunshot wound to his chest.

“He just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said a resident of the apartment building where Villanueva and his wife are managers.

Hawthorne Police Lt. James McInerny said Villanueva and his friend, Patrick Adorney, 29, were standing in the parking lot of Villanueva’s apartment complex about 9 p.m. Tuesday when bounty hunters Louis McNeill and Shane Locker approached them.

McNeill and Locker tried to subdue Adorney, who struggled. Locker accidentally fired his .45-caliber handgun, hitting Villanueva, who was standing aside, McInerny said. The bullet went through his chest.

When police arrived, they took Adorney into custody, and say he will be handed over to Virginia authorities. McInerny said that Adorney was also wanted on charges of assaulting a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy but that the Sheriff’s Department deferred to the Virginia warrant.

McNeill, 25, of New York City, and Locker, 24, of Laguna Niguel, were also taken into custody, but released Wednesday morning after it was determined the shooting was an accident.

“It was not a criminal act,” McInerny said.

Bounty hunters safeguard the financial stake of bonds people, who post bail for suspects facing criminal charges. It is a largely unregulated business that is legal in many states. However, bounty hunters have been involved in a number of controversial incidents over the years.

Last year, a bounty hunter in Ohio was convicted of abduction and burglary after he and a partner broke into a home, handcuffed a 17-year-old girl and forced her at gunpoint to help them find her boyfriend, who had jumped bail.

And in 1994, in a case of mistaken identity, members of a Rhode Island family vacationing in California were terrorized by armed bounty hunters in a motel in Costa Mesa. A Los Angeles Superior Court jury later ordered the motel and the bounty hunters to pay $1.15 million in damages to the family.

At the Park Crest Arms apartment complex, where Tuesday’s shooting took place, the street just off Hawthorne Boulevard was deserted Wednesday morning. Villanueva’s wife refused to speak about the incident. A longtime resident described the couple, who have been managing the complex for about 1 1/2 years, as quiet and efficient in their jobs.

“This is a problem that came through a visitor,” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Police said Villanueva told them Adorney was visiting from out of town, and said he knew his friend was in trouble with the law but was not aware of the exact crime.

The bounty hunters identified themselves as bond enforcement agents from a company named Kear in Brooklyn, N.Y., but business records in that state did not show any company by that name.

Martin L. Levine, a professor at the USC school of law whose specialties include criminal procedure, described bounty hunting as a parasitic industry that profits from the misfortune of criminal suspects.

Levine said there are an estimated 7,000 bounty hunters in the country, making about 25,000 to 30,000 arrests a year.

He noted that some states, such as Massachusetts and Kentucky, have curtailed the practice. But their defenders say that bounty hunters perform an important task and that incidents of abuse are rare.

“Over the last 10 years, there have been only about five incidents of a hunter shooting somebody,” said Bill Bryant, president of the National Assn. of Bail Enforcement Agents. Bryant said that does not warrant “shutting down an entire industry.”

Hawthorne Police Lt. McInerny said the case will be presented to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office by Friday to determine whether criminal charges will be brought against the bounty hunters involved in Tuesday’s shooting.

When asked how police would apprehend New York resident McNeill, McInerny said: “I’m sure he will surrender.”