Editorial: Deaths underscore need for laws over bounty hunters

Saturday, Sept. 6, 1997 | 11:17 a.m.

In the Phoenix incident, five bounty hunters looking for a California bail jumper sledgehammered through the front door of a residence at 4 a.m. last Sunday and began wreaking as much havoc as the killers in Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood."

The men, wearing ski masks and ninja-style SWAT gear, rousted a woman and her three children out of bed, tied them up and held them at gunpoint. A 17-year-old boy and a man were also held at bay.

Then the bounty hunters kicked down a locked bedroom door and confronted a 23-year-old man and his 21-year-old girlfriend, who had been sleeping.

The man in bed grabbed a 9-millimeter handgun and engaged the intruders in a wild gun battle. The man and woman were killed, and two bounty hunters were wounded. Officials later reported counting 29 bullet holes behind the bed.

Tragically, the bounty hunters had the wrong house.

If the shootout weren't shocking enough, the horrible episode created a fuller understanding of the wide leeway bounty hunters enjoy in collaring bail jumpers.

Across the country, some bounty hunters commit routine civil rights violations that would cost police officers their careers, but bounty hunters operate under gaudy legal privileges, based on century-old court rulings that seem more suited to the Wild West than today's world.

Unlike police officers, most bounty hunters undergo scant training -- if any at all -- and aren't regulated by a legitimate law enforcement agency. A national association offers minimal training, but's it not required. In many states, there is no licensing.

The Los Angeles Times reported that many bounty hunters simply buy a "hunter starter kit" for $205. In addition to black clothing, the kit contains handcuffs, pepper spray and leg irons.

The 1997 Nevada Legislature passed a law written by Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, requiring bounty hunters to undergo 80 house of training and be licensed with the state Insurance Division.

The law is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't clarify whether Nevada bounty hunters can burst into somebody's house without a warrant.

Clark County District Attorney Stewart Bell says they can't. In Arizona, the bounty hunters involved in the killings are facing felony charges.

But others say the picture is murkier. Carol Widmer-Hanna, executive director of the state Private Investigator's Licensing Board in the Nevada attorney general's office, said there are no search-and-seizure restrictions on bounty hunters as there are on police officers.

Many bounty hunters conduct themselves professionally. But Nevada law needs to be clarified so that any goon with a $205 kit can't barge into your house and slap you in a pair of cuffs -- or worse, gun you down.

As the incident in Arizona proved, we can't afford to let bounty hunters shoot first and ask questions later.