Ballistic Testing

This video series is probably of interest to anyone who might happen across this blog.

Epic Molle Time

Some of y'all will get this, some won't:

Lift yer glasses!

From Tam, a blogger I follow:

How many gun designers in the history of the planet have had, say, five completely different, commercially successful weapons to their credit?

The answer is "one".

Go. Read it. Lift yer glasses.

Gear, Updated

A while back, I posted here for the curious about the gear we wear on the street. As anyone with a military background can tell you, gear changes. You realize something or another just isn't fulfilling its purpose well enough, or some brand-spanking new thing comes out that you just have to have, even though what it replaces was working just fine. The ALICE gear we had when I first went in the Corps gave way to LBV's, then MOLLE gear, then various iterations of MOLLE gear, and now I've been out for quite a while so I'm not even sure what they're using now except that it's still a PALS-based system.

Some people seem to think they have to have the latest and greatest, just 'cause they like it. These are the same people who get a new car every time their lease runs out, a new computer every year or two even though all they use it for is the Internet, and probably keep up-to date on the developments in the fashion world as well.

Then there are the people who try to use gear as a substitute for knowledge and training. You'll see them decked out in Multicam or ATACS at the range, trying in vain to hit a target 10 yards away with their H&K uber-pistols.

And also, there are those who see no need to ever update their gear. The old stuff is working, so they leave it at that, and refuse to see how some new gear could really enhance their abilities.

Most of us are somewhere between the two extremes. When something new comes out, I take a look and see if I thing it would actually work better for me than what I'm using, and if so I buy it. Likewise even without new gear, I constantly evaluate how my gear is working for me, the way I do things, and if something is sub-optimal I look for something better. New techniques and better training often obviate old gear.

All that said, here's my setup as it currently stands:

(1) is my blow-out kit. Standard contents; look up "blow-out kit" or "trauma kit" anywhere on the Net and you'll find lists galore.

(2) is a .308 AR magazine pouch, which happens to be a great iPhone carrier.

(3) is the same, but carries cuffs.

(4) are, of course, 1911 magazines.

(5) is a GP pouch carrying various necessities.

(6) is an admin pouch with a flashlight holder.

(7) are a couple of these beautiful things. They hold 8 12-gauge shells per side, though in the single AR magazine pouches they're in I can only fill one side. Dummy-corded in, they pull out and can just be dropped after removing the shells.

(8) holds 12 12-gauge rounds.

Also, behind (2) and (3) are two more single AR magazine pouches. One holds a multitool and one holds my radio.

The vest is an armor carrier from Condor Tactical.

Range Day

Today was a great day of training for the 3EIFRU crew. Coordinated by Chris Dunn from Covered Six, at a semi-local range, it was nothing ultra-high-speed, but some good re-familiarization for me. Some of it was new to the new guys, but all took to it like ducks to water and moved right along. Everyone needs a little polishing on something, of course.

Then, Sensei's bike conked out and we had to load it in the back of my pickup to get it back to L.A. Finished off the day with some training at the dojo, then back home for a well-deserved evening off.

Filming promo material

Third Echelon FRU spent yesterday filming in Elysian Park. Interviews, closeups of gear, some informal stuff of us all telling stories, and things like that. This is to add to other footage we shot a few months back and put it together into something to show the network executives to sell the show.

It was a bit irritating to be directed. None of us are actors, or want to be, and having to redo things to look better for the camera was a pain. We all agreed in about a half a heartbeat that there will be no direction from the producers when we're on the street.


Anyway, we had a good time, got some good footage, and Redneck came home with a red neck (and face).

Newbs make good

Sensei took Viper and Beast out today and made an arrest on a file we just picked up last night. Third arrest for the new guys. Great work!

In other news, 3EIFRU is filming interviews tomorrow for the show. Watch for it!

Update

It's been busy lately and I haven't been updating this as much as I'd like to, but here's some of what's happened lately.

- I did a solo arrest on a guy down in Norwalk who didn't want to go. We wrestled a bit and he gave in - but it was too late to make it easy on himself, as someone else had already called the Sheriff's Department. They bum-rushed him, choked him, slammed him into the wall, and put my flex-cuffs on him a lot tighter than I would have. And as a result he went to jail with no shirt and no shoes. He's wearing a T-shirt in the pictures because one of the bondsmen standing outside the jail couldn't pass up the chance to get some free advertising inside the jail.

- We lost Jester and Fox, and added Remy, Viper, and Beast to the team.

- Beast and I arrested this one:

- Viper and I arrested this one:

- Sensei, Remy, Beast, Viper, and I arrested this one:

whose original charge was forgery. He had a passport in another name, but luckily we had a good picture from the bondsman. Without the picture (yeah, I'm talking to you, Mr. Don't-bother-to-get-all-the-info-and-a-pic-of-the-damn-defendant. You know who you are), we would have had to leave him there.

- Then we lost King. So the team as currently composed is Ronin, Sensei, Redneck, Remy, Viper, and Beast.

And that was just last week!

Bounty Hunting in the News

First, from Wilson Quarterly. This one starts off with a terrible example, as the guy is an idiot and the case they highlight got him arrested and jailed. And then skipped bail himself! Nonetheless, it'll be informative to anyone outside the industry.

Then, a more scholarly (and a bit drier) article from George Mason University, comparing public (police) and private bail enforcement.

Enjoy!

Another part of the job

Another thing we occasionally do is process service. Most process service is done by Sheriff's deputies, civilian process servers working for the Sheriff's department, or full-time process servers working for or contracted by attorneys. None of them are investigators, though, and some people either evade service. That's when the client calls us. We charge more than any of those other people, but we do a lot more.

So I spent this morning watching a house for a woman who extorted a former boyfriend and shot up a store he owns. It's suspected she frequently goes armed. I never saw her, but we'll try again at a different time of day.

UPDATE: Got her. The client knew where she was hanging out, so we canvassed the area and found her hiding in her car in the dark on the street.

Crystal Meth Kid

Ronin dubbed this one the Crystal Meth Kid, 'cause that's what he uses and sells. And when I say "sells" I don't mean "hooks up his friends sometimes when they're getting low." He had a ton of it on him when we searched him. And probably plenty more in his car, but that's not our concern.

This guy's been a thorn in our side for almost two months. We spent a lot of surveillance time at his girlfriend's family's house waiting for her to show up, and she never did (while we were there). We talked to his family, her family, old friends, current friends, and got very little useful out of any of them. We canvassed hotels and liquor stores all over the area he was known to be, and that appeared about to bear fruit, when a liquor store owner on Colorado Boulevard told me he'd been seen outside "just hanging around" (waiting for his customers) several times in the past couple weeks. But a few days ago we also learned he'd told his family that he'd rather go out "suicide by cop" than go back to jail. So we let his girlfriend's family know that, and explained that that put her in danger just for being with him, and like magic, two days later an informant called and told us:

• where he was staying,
• who was with him (the girlfriend and two gangbangers),
• what he was driving, and
• what they were driving,

which intelligence we utilized immediately. There was another bounty hunter looking for him for a different bondsman, who met us there. We (Ronin, Fox, King, and I) were all tac'd out, so the other guy went into the hotel to see, if they'd used a real name, what room they were in. Before he got that information, our boy and his girlfriend walked out of the room and started to get into their car. We later learned that they were leaving that hotel for another one just to try to stay ahead of us. Too late!

After all his trash talk about "suicide by cop," he wasn't even armed. And his homies (if they were there), never came out.The rest is pretty standard stuff. Roll up, cuff 'im, stuff 'im, roll to IRC, wait, wait, wait....

This is the kind of file that really feels great to close. After so much work and so much time, it's a great relief to be done with it and not have to think about him any more. And one last thing that made it feel good: This was a different bondsman from our usual, and he paid, in cash, the agreed amount, before we even finished the surrender.

Some Vegas Pics

What Happens in Vegas... (goes on my blog)

It's been a busy few weeks. Fox and I went up to Vegas the night of March 17th and spent a couple days doing promo photos for Crusader Weaponry, Nightforce Optics, Viridian Green Laser, and Battle Comp. Then we headed to Front Sight for their Four Day Defensive Handgun course.

A good friend from Tennessee, Oleg Volk (a frickin' photographic genius), met us there and did all the photography, and attended the course with us. The pics came out great, as expected. Here's one of me:

Here's Fox:

And those rifles are Broadswords from Crusader Weaponry.

Oleg's been a friend of mine for a long time, but I'd never met him in person before, so that was cool. We also met two other people I'd only known online before, and a woman who's only been shooting for a few weeks who reminded us how cool it is when it's new. She was working all night and shooting all day, and loving it so much she never lost her sunny disposition. Yeah, you know who you are, 밝은 미소.

As for Front Sight, here's my review of it, copied and pasted from another site:

The course we took is called "Four-Day Defensive Handgun" and that's what it is. The emphasis is heavily on timed shots from a concealed holster. There's a lot packed into the course, and no breaks other than lunch.

The course is designed in such a way that beginning shooters and old hands can all get a lot of benefit out of it. Each technique is taught, then demonstrated, then practiced dry, then practiced live. Nothing tacticool here, just how to get the gun out and shoot it.

One of my favorite points about this school is what they don't do. As with any training, I have minor disagreements about a few small details of the things they teach. So where I have my own reasons for doing something a little different, I do it my way. At other training facilities I've been constantly "corrected" on this, to the point of harassment, and even belittled for having a different opinion. Here, they continued to correct me on things that actually mattered, but recognized the things I was doing my way on purpose and left me alone on those things.

The instructors were good-natured throughout, and never set themselves up to be anything more than competent instructors. This is another major contrast to other places, where every instructor is a super-duper-high-speed-low-drag-ninja-sniper-recon-blah-blah-frickin'-blah. Egos don't get in the way at Front Sight.

My nitpicks are few. For one, because they pack so much into the time, there's very little opportunity for more experienced shooters to help the less experienced (or less able for whatever reason). Not a big deal. There are a few others not even worth mentioning.

All in all, a very good course for any level of competence. (Just don't pay list price, which is $2000. There are plenty of people selling certificates.) I highly recommend it.

All in all, we had a great time and got some great training from it. I'll add a few more pics from the shoot.

Thanks, Mom!

Last week, the night after our hat trick, Third Echelon rolled again on three files. Jester and Sensei were working one file, Ronin, King and I another two.

It was really more of an informational type of night, as we didn't expect to actually arrest anyone, just put some information together and turn up a little heat in the right places. So we rolled around and kicked in doors and just generally sowed hate and discontent, and started building up the files. One guy we were looking for was "Magic," a gangbanger from the Florencia 13 gang. We hit his mom's apartment twice that night (and in between headed over to his other known hangout and cleared a condemned drug house), and got mostly the same old lies we get from everyone: "Oh, I haven't seen him, we don't talk to him much, don't know where he stays, blah blah blah." But we nonetheless put together enough info on enough files to call it a night. We headed home. I watched an episode of Justified on Hulu and then went to bed.

Forty-five minutes later, who calls me but Magic's own mother, to tell me he's sleeping downstairs in her truck, and can I please come to her apartment first so she can open the truck and I won't need to break a window. So I jump out of bed into my gear, and start making calls as I head out. No-one answers.

So, on my way south the main thought running through my head was that Hispanic gangs in L.A. very frequently are family affairs. One hardcase that skipped to Mexico was running with Lennox 13, and his Aunt owned the main gang hangout, and his father and little brother were slinging dope too. So all the way down to South Central I was wondering "What if she's just luring me in for him?"

But the opportunity was too good to let go, and I knew if I kept my SA up I'd be fine. I wanted this guy, but if something didn't look right I'd leave him for later.

Got to the apartment building and there was no way I was going up to that apartment by myself. I grabbed the building security guard (armed) for cover-man, and started searching the garage. In the second row was a Sierra with our boy in the back. No mistaking him with those neck tattoos. I got him out, cuffed him, and took him in. As we were leaving, his mom came down crying and told him "Será mejor así." (It will be better this way.) Being the wonderfully compassionate person that I am (don't laugh, it's rude), I never told him who called me. I even told the guard to tell his mom that he didn't know.

The rest is typical IRC stuff I've told before.

Hat Trick

We had a little training at the dojo last night, then rolled out at 2130. Attending were Ronin, Fox, King, Sensei, and myself, the always-lovable Redneck.

First we went to the bond-out address, and learned the bailee had moved a couple months before. But the current tenants knew he was living near a mortuary up the street, and in addition to the yellow Mustang we knew about, the family owned a red Mustang and a white Yukon.

So we located the mortuary and canvassed the area for the cars. It didn't take long to find a red one parked two cars behind a yellow one, and there in a driveway was the white Yukon. So we made entry there and got that guy. No sweat. Funny how his mother had "heart problems," like they all do.

Then we went for another. When we hit his house King and I were heading around the back when this massive pit bull rounded the corner and came running for us. King was quick with the bear spray, but it's a fog rather than a stream or foam, and there was no wind to clear it out, so when the dog ran and we continued towards the back we walked right into it. There we were, coughing and sneezing, eyes burning, trying to keep an eye on the back. His family told us the bar he was getting drunk at and we headed there and sho 'nuff, there he was.

Then we decided to try for a third. We hit his apartment and he'd moved. No surprise, but we had another address a mile and a half away. So we headed over there and it was a condemned drug house with bullet holes all over it. But in the back, at the granny flat, another pit bull, bigger than the first, on a heavy chain connected to a tiny little rope... Well, we were able to get close enough to the flat to see in other open windows and verify there was no-one there, so no need for the bear spray that time. Personally, I think it's just a matter of time before one of us has to shoot a dog due to lack of time to deploy pepper spray. An attacking pit bull can move pretty fast.

So we got those two to IRC and dealt with the usual shenanigans from the staff there. Not bad as these things go, just over two hours. But somehow, we just didn't have that warm fuzzy feeling! So, we decided to get another one.

We hit a drive-through for some sustenance and headed down to Koreatown for another one. This was, by far, the easiest arrest we ever made. The guy was leaving his apartment as we rolled up, so it was a simple matter to clip him up and haul him away. Being the nice guy that I am, I even took his backpack up to his apartment for him! (Real reason - they don't accept backpacks as property at IRC.) This guy claimed the name he gave the cops and the court was a fake name, and that that's why he didn't go back.

Final tally: Three arrests, 12 hours all told.

Names

Time to dispense with the names I've been using and go with what everyone will soon recognize. I'm Redneck. "The Boss" is Ronin. "Miss M" is Fox. "Master P" is Sensei. "Elvis" is King. And "Jester" is, well, Jester. Those are our call signs on the team, and that's how we'll be known on the upcoming show, and that's what I'm going to be using here.

Why, oh why...

... do bondsmen insist on calling everything a B.O.B??????

Gotta blow off some steam here. A B.O.B. should be simple. One address, maybe 2, and we get the guy. The bondsmen always say it's that simple, anyway. In my opinion, if it isn't that simple it ain't really a B.O.B.

We're after a guy now that got arrested back in December and bonded out. That bondsman B.O.B.'d him and our client bailed him again. (Hello?) I don't know how they conduct business, but apparently his girlfriend did all the paperwork and he never so much as went into the office. He was supposed to go in and do his part later, and never did. He also never made his payments, nor did his girlfriend. So the bondsman waited three weeks before calling us. We got the file Wednesday, and it turns out the last time anyone saw him was Tuesday. Funny how that works.

Now we've put in 30 man-hours or so on this guy trying to track him down and he's a ghost. We've been in his house, and there's no sign that he's ever been there. We've been to his workplace and he's called in sick since Wednesday.

If the damn bondsman had just called us sooner it woulda been a simple pickup. Now they're going to have to pay forfeiture rates on what is still, technically, a B.O.B. Which has brought in no money at all.

Cretins.

Butt Neckid!

Out to Canyon Lake the other night (The whole crew: The Boss, Miss M, Master P, Jester, Elvis, and I) to pick up another wife-beater. At his first address he'd moved and the people there knew nothing about him. The neighbor, though, when he got over his fright ("Who's there, honey?" "Some very intimidating law enforcement people."), knew a bit and had heard the guy was living with his parents in Sun City.

Well, we had that address too, so we headed out there. It was a gated community and none of the codes we tried worked. So we left the vehicles parked at the gate, climbed over, and hoofed it across their "recreation area" to the house.

Mom answered the door, and played sick. Man, she was really selling it, too. Leaning on the wall, falling into a chair, it was ridiculous. Told us he wasn't there, she didn't know where he was living, she'd seen him the day before, etc etc etc. All BS. Her husband was a white-trash SOB himself, and the guy's girlfriend (the one he originally went to jail for beating), who claimed to be their daughter.  We didn't buy Mama's story, so we told her we were going to search the house.

Well, she didn't like that very much. She damn near swooned at the idea that we were going to walk through her house, and weren't even going to ask her permission. Then, as I was walking down the hall, Daddy actually called out, "Don't open that door on the left!" Yeah. Really. So what door did I open first? That door on the left, of course. And what did I find there? A dumpy little man (5'11 and 225, but somehow still weak looking), buck naked, sitting on the toilet in the dark.

If he wasn't really utilizing the facilities when he sat down, I guarantee he did when that .45-inch muzzle was in his face!

Then he compounded the embarrassment  (em bare-ass-ment?) by standing around nude trying to change our minds rather than put some damn clothes on. We were about to just cuff him nude and take him in that way when he finally realized he wasn't talking his way out of it.

That turn-in was another pleasant surprise compared to IRC in L.A. Those of y'all who've been around or read old posts will recall our one-minute surrender in Nashville. Well, this one wasn't quite that good; it took about 20 minutes and two forms to fill out.

Then we headed back to L.A.for another guy. I'd been to court on him the week before trying to do an in-court surrender, and he didn't show. He'd been there often enough that the bailiff knew what he looked like, advised me he wouldn't be there, and tipped me that when he was on his meds he was fairly normal, and when off them he was downright nutty.


So we arrived at his address and ended up waking up the whole area, because it was apartments with no numbers on them. When we finally found the one he lived in and were searching it, I opened the bathroom door and out came the biggest damn pit bull I've ever seen. And if he were a big mean pit bull, he'd have been a big mean dead pit bull, because my muzzle was inches from his face and I was beginning to squeeze when it became apparent he wasn't actually attacking, but trying to scare me. Then The Boss pepper-sprayed him and that was pretty much the end of that.


The fugitive, we were told, had gone to New Orleans. That's strange, because the very next day he turned himself in in Los Angeles.


It was a fun night.

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.

Glossary

A brief, non-inclusive list of terms used here in this blog:

1299: The now-expired law stating who can arrest and surrender fugitives.

3EI: Third Echelon Investigations

3EIFRU: Third Echelon Investigations' Fugitive Recovery Unit.

B.O.B.: Bondsman Off Bond. This is when the bailee has not yet had an FTA (See: FTA) but is in some other way not abiding by the terms of the agreement with the bondsman. He could be missing payments, missing check-ins, or the bondsman could suspect he is planning to run. The bondsman has broad authority to revoke the bond and surrender the bailee to the custody of the court.

Bailee: The person out on bond.

Bond-Out Address: The address the bailee gave as his home address on the bond. We have broad authority at that address.

Bondsman: The person who fronts the money to pay a bond.

EP: Executive Protection

FTA: Failure To Appear in court.

In-court surrender: Turning someone over to the custody of a judge in open court. The way this works is we simply let the bailiff know we want to surrender him, and when his name is called (if he's there), they take him into custody. This assumes he shows up.

Indemnitor: A person who co-signs the bond. This person is responsible for making sure the bailee abides by the terms of the agreement, including showing up in court.

IRC: Inmate Reception Center. Where we usually turn in fugitives. See: Twin Towers.

MOLLE: MOdular Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment. A method of attaching various pockets and pouches to a tactical vest or to body armor. See: PALS

PALS: Pocket Attachment Ladder System. See: MOLLE

PI: Private Investigator

Surrender: The process of turning someone over to the government. This is usually done at the jail, but can be done in court or to the coroner.

Twin Towers: The Los Angeles Central Jail. IRC is here.

WC: Workers' Compensation

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!

Lesson learned

The bread and butter of the typical private investigator consists of two main types of cases: spousal infidelity and/or workers' compensation fraud. We're far from typical, but we still get some of these cases from time to time.

One infidelity case just wrapped up Wednesday night. What makes this case somewhat unique is what I learned from it. For several weeks we'd been letting the client call the shots, according to her suspicions of when he was cheating and with whom. We were burning up her money getting nothing. Wednesday afternoon we finally told her to just let us handle it our way, and she agreed.

I tailed the guy to a restaurant and got the incriminating video inside and outside, then tailed the woman to her residence to identify her. Turned out it was the same woman he'd been cheating with last year. I can't really say the client was happy, but she was more than satisfied with our work.

Promo stuff

We've been shooting a promo video for the upcoming reality show. Above are the weapons laid out prior to a scene we did in a parking garage. The scenario was three guys in a car entering the garage, and we arrested all three.

This promo video is staged, of course, because the camera crew doesn't want to roll with us for real until some insurance issues are settled. It's fun, but a little irritating to keep repeating all the action until everything goes just right.

Then Wednesday we rolled out to Burro Canyon, a local shooting range (if "local" includes BFE), and shot some training scenes and some brief interviews.

Saturday is more filming, this time entry stuff. A former client and current friend of the company has agreed to let us break down her door for the scene.

Stand by...

No posts for a while now, there are things going on but can't talk too much about the details. When there's something to say I'll say it.

Follow the Goose to the Gander (aka Wild Goose Chase)

Our boy in Inglewood, we've confirmed through an informant, is a shooter for Lennox 13, one of the local street gangs. We also learned what car his girlfriend drives, and I went down and put a GPS tracker on it last night. Now I have a guy a few steps behind her while I track the car online, so she can lead us to him.

She drove around for about an hour, stopped at several places, and when my guy pulled up beside her she had her girlfriends in the car. Then she went home. Wild Goose Chase.

No matter, she'll meet him sooner or later. But it's frustrating, expending time and and energy on what turns out to be nothing.

UPDATE: She left again last night and we know where he may be staying. Stand by for further.

C'mere. Come closer to the fence.

So this piece of work here is Juan Sacalxot, from Oaxaca. His charges were vehicle code stuff (I didn't bother looking them up) and probation violation. He lived in Koreatown, in one of Los Angeles' many gang areas. We (The Boss, Miss M, and I) went first to his home address, and as we got out of our cars the cops rolled by. That saved us a call, we explained what we were doing, and one of them informed us that a handcuff would work just perfectly to get through the fence and open the security door.

Well, there was a guy on the second floor watching the street, so we went around the corner so he wouldn't think we were going to that building. We headed around to the back and found a six-foot cement wall, topped with four feet of chain-link, topped with razor wire. With at least 20 pairs of eyes on us from the parking lot and the other apartments on the other side, we bent back a section of wire and made a hole just large enough to shimmy through. 

Miss M went up the back stairs while The Boss and I headed to the front. As we walked up the building manager stuck his head out, so we asked after our friend Juan. The manager knew Juan, and knew where he worked, since he had taken his car to the body shop where Juan worked, and with a little help from his wife was able to locate an address for another body shop across the street. He said Juan usually got home at 9 or 10, if at all, so we decided not to hit the apartment yet, and headed to his workplace up on Sunset Boulevard.

Arriving there, we encountered another fence. Twelve feet high or so, but no razor wire on top. The shop was closed and the gate padlocked, but there were lights on inside. As we were preparing to go over, who should walk out of the shop but Juan himself! We called him over (not sure why he came) and asked him his name. He thought for a moment and said it was Manuel. Well, we did have a picture, so we told him to come closer to the fence (he did that too - not very smart, this guy) and The Boss grabbed him by the shirt while Miss M cuffed him to the gate. I provided a convenient shoulder for The Boss to go over the fence and let Juan's boss know what was going on so he could unlock the gate. 

Then the usual shenanigans at IRC and a Denny's finisher to the evening. Later I had to go retrieve a couple GPS trackers from a car up in the Valley, but nothing to write about there, really.

Finally Busy

We picked up two more fugitive files a few days ago. Big ones: each is $275,000. We've been running down leads on one of them for the past few nights, and we're definitely getting closer. Last night we spoke to one of the indemnifiers, who was just a friend of the bailee's brother, and let them know (apparently they didn't understand) that they'd made themselves responsible for that money if the Bailee didn't appear in court. Now he's going to try to locate the Bailee and let us know where he's hiding.

The other big file is a guy from Arizona who apparently has some sort of charity scam going on. We think we know where he is, and it's just a matter of picking him up.

There's another file in the works we should have today, and some small protective details on the horizon. Things are looking up!

Yes We Can (or "Don't Tell Me My Job")

Got the call Wednesday night for a B.O.B. (bondsman off bond) pickup. A B.O.B. is when the bondsman is uncomfortable with the situation for whatever reason and no longer wants to be responsible for the Bailee. It could be because they have reason to believe the Bailee is planning to flee, as in a recent arrest in Lancaster (someone remind me to tell that story sometime), or the Bailee is not checking in as they are supposed to, or misses payments. The bondsman has broad discretion to drop the bond at any time.

B.O.B. arrests are usually simple affairs, as the Bailee is not yet a fugitive and doesn't usually have reason to expect us, so isn't hiding. That depends on the bondsman, though, and if they don't play it right they can spook the Bailee.

This one was supposed to be a simple one, and the bondsman went with me to the bailee's address Wednesday night. No-one was home, and we ran down a few other possibilities with no luck. Then Thursday night after a promotional photo shoot we went back out (The Boss, Miss M, Master P, me, and some local talent that fills in sometimes) and tried again. Still not home.

Then last night I got the call at half past midnight that Doc had spotted the Bailee's vehicle at his address. I headed down to pick up The Boss, and we met Doc at the house. The Bailee wasn't home, but his wife was. It took convincing to get her to open the door, but she finally did, after calling the police. We searched the house and he wasn't there, and she kept police dispatch on the phone the whole time. She kept telling us we couldn't be there (wrong) and didn't want to give us any information about her husband. When the cop got there he explained to her that we could go there any time, and that didn't help her mood much. Finally the dispatcher broke in and said "Ma'am, why are you acting like this?"

Eventually we got her to tell us he was at his parents' house, but wouldn't tell us where it was. Unbeknownst to her, we already had the address of his parents' house in Lancaster. Just before we set out, Doc's Suburban broke down. The Boss and I called in Miss M and another local guy, who met us at my place and we headed to the desert.

The rest is boring. We got there, pounded on the door, he came out, and I'm typing this on the way back to L.A.