Restraints Sought on Rogue Bounty Hunters

Jon Fitzpatrick looks the part of a bounty hunter -- tall, rugged, occasionally forbidding. He packs a gun, opts for Johnny Cash black when forced to wear a suit and isn’t afraid to tackle a fugitive when the situation calls for it.

But he’d really rather you called him a “fugitive recovery agent,” and says his profession is mostly about research and shoe-leather tracking than busting down doors and bringing in bad guys at gunpoint.

“I like to find people who don’t want to be found,” Fitzpatrick said. “Ninety-nine-point-five percent of the time, they will say: ‘OK, can I get my shoes?’ ”

Fitzpatrick spends most of his time tracking down small-time bail jumpers for a few hundred dollars apiece. He says television and movie portrayals of big-money bounty hunters give a false impression of his profession as action-packed and glamorous, luring in novices with more aggression than sense.

So he’s pushing Washington state lawmakers to rein in his largely unregulated trade, concerned the bare-knuckle tactics of less responsible colleagues might get somebody killed.

“People say: ‘Oh, you’re a bounty hunter, so you like to kick in doors and screw guns in people’s faces,’ ” Fitzpatrick said as he testified before the Legislature last month. “It gives my company a bad name.”

That stereotype hit too close to home last year when a novice 19-year-old bounty hunter pointed a shotgun at a woman and her baby at a Starbucks coffee shop before handcuffing and hauling away an innocent man -- one of Fitzpatrick’s friends.

Figuring that it was an abduction, bystanders called police, and the bounty hunter wound up charged with assault and kidnapping.

So last month found Fitzpatrick, dressed in black from shoes to necktie, sitting uncomfortably in a hearing room at the Washington Legislature.

For him, it’s more than just the personal affront of having a fellow recovery agent abduct one of his friends. It’s the possibility that violent invasions might turn normally docile fugitives violent.

“The next time I have to come to that house, they’re going to be armed, they’re going to be booby-trapping the doors,” Fitzpatrick said.

Washington and some two dozen other states don’t regulate bounty hunters, said Scott Olson, president of the National Institute of Bail Enforcement, a 3,000-member organization based in Chicago that supports regulation of the industry. “What really hurts us is that we get these rogue bounty hunters out there,” he said. “They go and kick in doors and do their thing.”

Without state regulation, bail bondsmen and their agents enjoy broad powers to break into houses and drag away fugitives -- known as “bail skips” -- without a warrant. Under an 1872 U.S. Supreme Court decision, people surrender many of their civil rights when a bondsman bails them out of jail.

“They become, in essence, property,” said state Rep. Mike Carrell, a sponsor of the licensing bill. “It’s a contract, and the bail bond company says, ‘You are now mine. You don’t run away.’ ”

The Republican’s proposal would limit the trade to people with appropriate education or experience, including instruction in relevant laws, appropriate use of force, training in firearms and no felony convictions.

Agents would need a license to carry a concealed pistol, effectively limiting the profession to those over 21. The plan also would require agents to notify police when they plan to force entry into a home.

A look at Fitzpatrick’s working life gives insight into why he wants a more regulated profession.

He doesn’t carry a cellphone or pager when he’s hunting fugitives because he’s afraid that an ill-timed beep could break his concentration at a crucial point.

He saves the black suit for formal occasions, mostly wearing jeans and a multicolored fleece pullover that hides his gun and makes him look like thousands of other working-class Northwesterners. Sometimes his cases are just a matter of walking up to the front door and knocking. In other cases, guile is required.

Fitzpatrick says he once bought $400 in casino vouchers, hired a limo and told a skip that he’d won a free casino trip. When the sharply dressed fugitive hopped in the limo, Fitzpatrick and a partner jumped in on either side and nabbed him.

Associated Press photographer Ted S. Warren contributed to this report.