Lil Rickie

This husky sumbitch rahchiah (sound it out, I know that's a new language for some of y'all) is Lil Rickie, charged with assault with a deadly weapon, possession with intent to distribute, and a couple other things I disremember right now. Another pretty easy grab yesterday for 3EIFRU. Most of the team went out to the high desert Sunday night and hit several likely hiding places, missing him by just 30 minutes at one of them. I was otherwise occupied, but ended up checking an indemnitor's address, and came up empty.

We hit the indemnitor's apartment Monday, scared the crap out of her (not really intentional, but still), and got a call from Lil Rickie not ten minutes later.

---redacted for OpSec reasons---

Then while I was talking to him Rebel, Diesel, Rookie, and Chopper came up behind and made the arrest. Turns out he'd been in L.A. anyway, so the drive was kind of a waste of time. But all's well that ends well. A relatively quick surrender later we were on the way home in L.A. traffic.

By the way, you meet the most interesting people in IRC...

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.

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.

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!