Tacoma, WA - A bail bond agent who thought he was recapturing a dangerous bail jumper was jailed after seizing the wrong man at gunpoint in a drive-through line. The agent pointed a shotgun at a woman driving a car with a baby in the back, ordered a male passenger out of the car and handcuffed him Monday afternoon at a Starbucks, police spokesman Jim Mattheis said. Believing he had caught a desperado who could be armed and dangerous, the agent drove away with the man as onlookers called 911. "They thought it was a kidnapping that took place in the parking lot," Mattheis said. One man followed the bond agent until officers caught up with his car. Fingerprints showed the man in handcuffs "was not the bad guy, which he’d said all along," Mattheis said. The bond agent was jailed for investigation of kidnapping and assault.
Anyone here have some experience or insights on how these bondsmen and bounty jumpers can operate? Stuff like this--and that home invasion a couple years ago in Phoenix that was a burglary disguised as a bounty hunter raid--raise some serious concerns about how they can operate in such a quasi-legal role. If some bounty hunter mistook me for a felon, I would fight back any way possible thinking it was a ruse for a kidnapping or worse. |