Long Night

We (The Boss, Miss M, Master P, Jester, King, and I) rolled last night on a couple different guys. We went first to one scumbag's aunt's house, which we hit last week. She promised then to let us know if she heard anything of him, but then she apparently called some other family member and let it slip that we'd been there looking for her nephew. So we went back to impress upon her the importance of not letting anyone know we were there. She was half in the bag, and emphatically swore she wouldn't tell. That, for the moment, was the end of that.

Then we went after this one:

...and found him in his underwear on the couch. We had to mace his dog to get to the door, which is not my favorite thing to do, but it worked. Then King slipped going over the fence and cut his leg (and brand-new 5.11 pants). Got our guy to the jail and it was a (relatively) quick turn-in, coming in at about 2 hours. While we were there we got a call that our other fugitive had called his aunt and told her he was arrested. Checking the sheriffs' websites, I found him in Kern County, sho 'nuff in custody. So all that was required was what's called a "paper surrender" or "in-jail surrender." That's where we surrender a bailee on his bonds when he's already in custody. The outcome is the same as if we arrested him ourselves. So I called Kern County to confirm we could do that, and got the nod. Master P and I headed up to Bakersfield.

We arrived at around 0500 and headed straight to the jail. Master P laid on the charm, but to no avail. You can't do an in-jail surrender on an L.A. County bond at a Kern County jail, even though that's where the person is in custody. We're going to have to wait for him to be arraigned in Kern County, sentenced, then brought back to L.A., where we can surrender him. Did I mention that I confirmed on the phone that I could do it? Yes, I did. But the person on the phone, apparently, was a moron.

Finally got back to L.A. at around 1100 and crashed at the dojo. Or tried to. My phone kept waking me up. We now have an assist from the DEA on another fugitive, because they're interested in a family member. Their resources are much more extensive than ours, so we should have that one wrapped up in fairly short order now.

So now I'm sucking down Starbucks espresso and blogging, and looking forward to hitting the rack tonight at home.

- Redneck

There is none so blind...

Got the call last Friday afternoon to head down to Vernon and arrest this guy on a B.O.B. No problem, thinks I, and jumps in his truck and heads to the guy's workplace in Vernon. A brief stop on the way to pick up another fugitive file, and there I was.

The management didn't want to take me to him, and the place was too big to go walking around searching, but they were helpful enough to show me the car he rode in, and I waited on that. Eventually he came out (not through the door they said he'd use) and approached the car.

The arrest went smoothly, no resistance, and his wife was right there to collect his property and save me a little paperwork and him a little hassle at the jail. OK, on to IRC.

Got all the paperwork done and in order and submitted it to the clerk. Then the trouble started.

A little background. There's a California law (Penal Code section 1299) that specifies who can surrender a fugitive. It includes several categories of people who can do this, one of which is Private Investigators. A later section requires that people in some of those categories (but not Private Investigators) must have certain certificates of certain required training. A Private Investigator's license covers all employees of the licensed PI. Thus, I was surrendering the fugitive under a valid CA PI license. Which means (if you care to read the law) that I am not required to have those certificates. None of that really matters, though, because the law expired January 1st 2010, and until they pass another one no-one needs any certificates whatsoever. Just authority from the bondsman to surrender on that bond. Which of course we had.

Well, there is indeed none so blind as he who will not see. The clerks at IRC know only that bounty hunters must have their certifications. Explaining the law to them didn't help. Explaining that the law no longer applied didn't help. Getting the Watch Commander to print out the law herself, see plainly what it said, and speak to the Head Clerk (who is apparently only one step from God Himself) didn't help, because the Watch Commander simply deferred to the Head Clerk's assertion that bounty hunters must have their certifications.

Never mind that I've turned fugitives in there before. "The Head Clerk Says" seems to be their mantra. So I called The Boss, who came down to see if he could resolve the situation. No dice, and they actually called a few deputies in as if to arrest me for making a "false arrest" of the fugitive. The Head Clerk Says. Never mind that The Boss has turned fugitives in there before. The Head Clerk Says. Never mind that the law was plainly written and easy to understand. The Head Clerk Says.

It almost got ugly.

Eventually they accepted the guy on his warrants, but not on the bonds. So the bondsman had to go down later and surrender him on the bonds. Now, we're probably going to have to go take a completely unnecessary class that covers insurance code stuff, just to continue to do what the (expired) law stated we could already do, which we've been doing for months!

- Redneck