Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Find any business, with door-to-door directions from your home!

auto
community
computers & internet
dining & entertainment
health
home & real estate
hotels & travel
money & law
shops & services


Search for local events:

Containing keywords:
Search for local groups:

Keywords (optional):

 


Today in The Columbian



BOUNTY HUNTERS CHASE PREY WITH LITTLE OVERSIGHT

Monday, May 14, 2001
By ERIN MIDDLEWOOD, Columbian staff writer

A large, dark sport-utility vehicle pulled up alongside Cyndi White's car, trapping her inside. A man, dressed in baggy jeans, approached the car. He demanded to see her ID.

    "I'm being carjacked," was White's first thought. She frantically dialed 911 on her cell phone.

    "There's somebody standing in front of my car asking me for ID with something that says 'fugitive recovery agent,'" she told the dispatcher in a wavering voice. "He's standing right outside my car. ... He's got a gun -- or I don't know what."

    The man told her he was from Metro Bail Bonds. She matched the description of a woman wanted for skipping bail.

    "We are under the impression that you have warrants out for your arrest," he said.

    When Vancouver police arrived, officers established that Cyndi White really was Cyndi White. A 31-year-old department manager at Nordstrom in Beaverton, Ore. The daughter of Clark County's juvenile court administrator. An upstanding citizen. Not a bail skip.

    Officers also established that the men who had trapped White in her car were bail recovery agents, more popularly known as bounty hunters. And they weren't doing anything wrong.

    Bounty hunters track down and arrest people who have skipped bail. They have broad authority -- in some situations, more than police. They carry guns. They can freely enter the homes of so-called bail skips to make arrests. But no government agency oversees them.

    A bill in the Legislature would require state licensing of bounty hunters. Similar efforts have failed in past years, and the bill is unlikely to pass during this crammed special session, said one of the bill's sponsors.

    That means bounty hunters likely will continue to "operate in their own little world," as Vancouver Police Sgt. Dave King put it.

    "We operate under the Constitution," King said. "They operate under a contract."

   

    Call for reform

    White's March 18 encounter with bounty hunters was frightening but uneventful. For a Brush Prairie man last year, the encounter was fatal.

    David Trammell was gunned down at his Brush Prairie apartment by a bounty hunter who was trying to arrest him for skipping bail posted by Allwest Bail Bonds.

    As far as the Clark County prosecutor's and sheriff's offices are concerned, the case is closed: The bounty hunter shot in self-defense.

    Trammell's sister, Kathy Lutz, thinks it's more complicated than that. The 46-year-old Camas resident still loses sleep over her older brother's death. She stays up nights writing letters to officials and updating her Web site that declares, "My brother was killed by a bounty hunter Oct. 2, 2000, at 3:01 a.m. over a misdemeanor."

    Though sheriff's detectives found that Timothy Smallidge fired in self-defense after Trammell stabbed him with a knife, Lutz believes her brother was startled and thought he was defending his home.

    Trammell, 48, had missed a District Court appearance. The court had issued arrest warrants against him for fourth-degree domestic violence assault, driving while his license suspended, and other misdemeanors, with bail amounts ranging from $100 to $500.

    "Who goes after someone for such a small amount of money in the middle of the night?" Lutz asks herself over and over.

    Things would have turned out differently for her brother if the state required that bounty hunters obtain licenses, undergo training and wear identifying garments, Lutz believes.

    "I receive training as a school bus driver on how to de-escalate a situation, and these guys don't even have to get that much training," Lutz said.

    Since her brother's death, she's compiled a notebook of pictures of him and information she's gathered from police reports. She's written letters to the county prosecutor and the Department of Licensing. But she's found that, as bounty hunters, Smallidge and his partner had a right to enter Trammell's apartment. And though the Department of Licensing oversees bail agents and audits their financial records, it does not have jurisdiction over those who chase down people who skip bail.

   

    Bailing out

    When people who are arrested get out of jail by posting bail through a bondsman, they sign a contract that gives the bail agent the right to take them to jail if they don't show up for court appearances.

    The defendants, usually with the help of family, post 10 percent to 15 percent of the bail amount, as well as collateral, with the bonding company.

    The bonding company then gives the court a post-dated voucher to cover the amount of bail. The court returns the check if the defendant show up, but cashes the check if the defendant fails to appear in court.

    If the bail agency can track down the defendant, it gets the money back.

    That's where bounty hunters come in.

    Almost 100 bail agents in Clark County have current state licenses. Some track down and arrest bail skips for themselves. Some hire independent bounty hunters, but the county has only a handful of those, according to one bail bondsman. Because no agency tracks or regulates bounty hunters, there's no way to say for sure.

    Nationally, about 1,500 to 2,000 people act as bounty hunters and arrest about 21,000 people a year, said Bob Burton, director of the National Institute of Bail Enforcement in Tucson, Ariz.

    He said they provide a service by rounding up criminals at no cost to taxpayers. Even so, he concedes bounty hunters have "an image problem."

    "It's there with used-car salesman, politicians and pit bulls," Burton said.

   

    No rules

    Even the bail agents who hire and sometimes act as bounty hunters would like state oversight, said Shirley Williams, an Everett bail bondswoman and president of the Washington State Bail Agents Association.

    During the current special legislative session, Reps. Marc Boldt, R.- Hockinson, and John Pennington, R.- Carrolls, along with several others, have re-introduced a bill that would require bounty hunters to receive training on use of force and legal issues, and possess a concealed weapons license.

    "It's a no-brainer concept," Pennington said. Even so, he doesn't expect the bill to pass this session, as in past sessions, simply because other issues take priority.

    Without some kind of law, the state has little say-so when it comes to bounty hunters. Bail bondsmen or their agents may pursue a defendant across state lines, arrest him, "and if necessary may break and enter his house for that purpose," according to a 1856 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

    Complaints against bounty hunters have cropped up in Clark County over the years, said Jim David, a Clark County deputy prosecutor who outlined relevant laws in a 1995 memo. Case law has established that bounty hunters can act with near impunity against bail skips, but they can be held liable for breaking into the wrong house or laying a hand on the wrong person.

    "In the bail bond contract, the defendant waives constitutional rights, gives us permission to enter their home and take them across state lines. If we in any way side step, we can be sued and arrested," Burton said.

    The National Institute of Bail Enforcement has established a code of ethics, Burton said. It calls on people going after skips to "work entirely with the framework of the law," "verify paperwork, warrants and documents which might lead to a wrongful arrest," and "to arrest the bail fugitive in the most humane, legal and responsible manner possible."

    That voluntary code is not enough to hold bounty hunters accountable, said Lutz. Both she and White said agents should have standard and readily recognizable identification.

    White said when she was confronted by Metro agents, their badges simply didn't look legitimate to her. When she didn't show her ID, the agents thought White surely must be the woman they were trying to find, said Regan, the bail agency's owner. What White thought was a gun was actually a tazer, which administers a nonlethal electrical shock, and she was never in danger, he said.

    White, however, said she felt her life was threatened. With her fiance's 14-year-old brother in the car with her, White didn't want to take any risks.

    "I'm thinking this is fake, and these guys are are thugs, and they don't want people to know what they're doing," White said. "If it had been police, I would have been able to calmly say, 'OK, I'm not this person.'"

   

    Late-night tactics

    White was very upset by the incident, but Metro agents were actually doing everything right, Regan said. They watched the house until they believed they had the right person, approached her outside in daylight, and called 911 themselves when things didn't go as planned, he said.

    In the case of the fatal shooting last October, Smallidge and his partner, William Crause, arrived at Trammell's house in the middle of the night. According to the sheriff's office report, the agents first stopped at Trammell's parents' house because they had cosigned his bond.

    When the agents arrived at the Prairie View Apartments, Trammell's wife, Marilyn "Micky" Trammell, let them inside. She thought her husband had already left for an early job working on a dam near Eugene, Ore., she said.

    Micky Trammell said she ducked into her bedroom to put on some clothes when she heard a struggle and a "pop." She saw her husband had been shot.

    "There's blood everywhere," Micky Trammell said. "What a waste of human life."

    She said the vision of her husband lying in a pool of blood still haunts her. Micky Trammell was already losing her husband to bladder cancer. She said their last months together were stolen.

    Micky Trammell said she recognized the agents, who had arrested her several months before for missing a court appearance for a driving-while-intoxicated charge. But she believes her husband was caught off guard.

    "It's pitiful that someone could come into our home, and we don't have the right to protect ourselves," she said.

    According to the sheriff's office investigative report, Smallidge had amphetamines in his system. He later said he had taken cold medicine, something he didn't mention when detectives asked him during an interview if he had taken any medication.

    Smallidge could not be reached for comment. The phone number he gave detectives has been disconnected. Allwest Bail Bonds, where he worked as a bail agent, has since fired him. Allwest's new manager, Brandon Svoboda, would not say why and did not know how to contact Smallidge. The Department of Licensing shows Smallidge's bail agent license is inactive.

    Crause still works at Allwest, but as an underwriter and doesn't do bail recovery any longer, Svoboda said.

    David Trammell never had a chance to set things straight with Allwest, Lutz said. Her parents, who were cosigners on Trammell's bond, received a letter from Allwest on Saturday, Sept. 30, saying he had missed a court date. Her brother was shot at 3 a.m. the following Monday.

    "If they would have called my brother on the phone, he would have said, 'Oh man, I screwed up. Come and get me.'"

   

    ON THE WEB

    For a list of bail bond agents in Clark County, consult the Washington Department of Licensing:

    www.wa.gov/dol /lists

   


Search the free columbian.com archives:


Related links:

Other stories from today's Columbian.

Hot issues
Discuss this story and other local issues in our spirited discussion forums.


Webmaster for News is Ken Bilderback.

National news
Newspapers
from around
the U.S.
   

columbian.com home page | columbian.com index


Copyright © 2001 by The Columbian Publishing Co. P.O. Box 180, Vancouver, WA 98666. No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or reproduced in any way, including but not limited to photocopy, photograph, magnetic or other record, without the prior agreement and written permission of the publisher.