Buffalo lawmakers are looking into the regulation of bail bondsmen following a lawsuit against the city over an incident where armed bond recovery agents were seeking a fugitive.
Common Council President Darius G. Pridgen asked the city's Law Department to update the Council during Tuesday's Legislation Committee on city, state and federal laws that impact bounty hunters.
Throughout the United States bail enforcement agents have varying levels of authority. Some states have a formal training and licensing process for bail bondsmen, though most remain largely unregulated.
That’s according to documents Pridgen filed with the Buffalo city clerk.
“This is something that we need to immediately know so that if there are any policies that need to be made or if there are policies there that we are made aware if they need to be changed,” Pridgen said during last week’s Council meeting.
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Pridgen said his comments are general and not directed at any particular case.
Still, the inquiry comes in the wake of a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month against the city, claiming seven Buffalo police officers aided bounty hunters who held a pregnant woman and her 3-year-old daughter at gunpoint.
The officers were at the scene of the late-night raid, orchestrated by two Pennsylvania bounty hunters who walked up the front porch steps at 31 Oakdale Place drawing a shotgun and AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, according to the lawsuit. The two bail bondsmen were looking for a fugitive, who was not at the two-family home owned by the fugitive’s brother.
"I would not want to see a bail bondsmen be able to go into a private home without having some type of due diligence because my fear is if someone told a bail bondsmen that someone they were looking for is in one your houses, in a citizen’s house, where they weren’t," Pridgen said.
“A police officer has to have a warrant, which means they have to go before a judge,” he continued. “They have to give some type of cause. At the end of the day … people shouldn’t just be able to go into individuals’ homes, and again for the record, we are not talking about one particular case. However, overall I think it should be a concern to everyone whether or not a bail bondsmen has the authority to enter a private residence that doesn’t belong to someone whom they are looking for or have credible evidence and who they are supposed to give that credible evidence to.”
The bail bonds business is regulated by the state Department of Licensing, said Assistant Corporation Counsel Carin Gordon.
