Tim, The Real World Bounty Hunter
By Joe Ciolino
If you go online and conduct a search for bounty hunting, you may not be too surprised with the top results. It’s probably stuff you’ve linked bounty hunting to before.
This may include pop culture like that Dog guy who had a television series, some video games where you can ride a horse and seek runaways for in-game currency, or those bad men hired by Vader to find the millennium falcon.
Media portrays a lot of glitz and glamour tied to this seemingly fun and adventurous career field while still appearing to be mysterious, dark and dangerous. Not only that, there are high-profile bad guys, big payoffs and wild stories abound.
All of these characteristics are ideal on the big screen for entertaining audiences, but is this how it is in the real world? What does a real world bounty hunter do?
Tim Ryerson, 50, out of Vancouver, Washington knows first hand what it’s really like. He got his start as a bounty hunter just a little more than a year ago.
The former landscaper and current Amazon warehouse worker was at a local gun shop talking to his friend who owns the shop when he was mentioning the whole idea of bounty hunting and how it was something that he thought about pursuing as a full-time gig.
The shop owner, on the other side of the counter, walked down near the cash register and picked up a matchbox, and pushed it down toward Ryerson, sliding it along the glass.
Ryerson picked it up and it read 11:11 Bail Bonds.
“Huh.” Ryerson thought. “This could be a good fit.”
Ryerson decided to pursue it and he’s now a certified fugitive recovery agent in Vancouver, Washington.
It was a lengthy process that required him to go through the academy and get certified by the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, the same people who certify police officers. He also had to get a small business license, an armed license and pass an FBI and state background investigation. After that, the exam goes to the department of licensing, he took another exam that costs $500. Then once he passed that, he finally got his license issued.
“I had to jump through all these hoops. It was horrible, arduous. I was psyched to get it all done but we’re talking about six-to-seven months to put it all together,” Ryerson said. “I thought it was going to be legit, I thought we were going to have plenty of work.”
There really didn’t turn out to be much work according to him. Part of it is due to his geographic disadvantage. Being in Vancouver, many fugitives on the run who would otherwise give Ryerson more cases and thus more bounties, just end fleeing to Oregon since the border is so close.
That’s because bounty hunting isn’t legal in Oregon. In fact, it’s outlawed. So are bail bonds businesses.
According to BountyHunter.Edu, Oregon is just one of four states that has outlawed it, the others being Kentucky, Illinois and Wisconsin. In October 1978, The Oregon Supreme Court ruled in State vs. Epps that bounty hunting was in turn, kidnapping, and bounty hunting was completely banned. What this means is, if a bounty hunter comes into Oregon to try and apprehend an individual who has fled into the state, the bounty hunter could be subject to arrest for kidnapping.
So how does Ryerson operate in Oregon if he needs to?
He simply doesn’t. Neither he or other bounty hunters or bail bondsman can do a thing in Oregon.
“If someone runs to Oregon, and they have warrants in Washington, we can’t go get them, we can’t take them, we can try to convince them but that never really works,” said Ryerson. “If they flee to Oregon, Sayanara.”
There are, however, ways to try and work around this by luring fugitives back over the state line into Washington, and he has tried it before.
There were two fugitives hiding out in Clackamas, Oregon, who had felony warrants out of Vancouver. He found out they owned a cleaning business. He contacted them through their website and told them he has a house in Vancouver that needs to be cleaned on a daily basis.
“That was just an avenue to try and convince them to cross that line, so we can try and snatch them up,” he said. “You pose and play whatever part you have to play in order to catch them.”
Unfortunately it didn’t work out the way he had planned and they stopped talking to him.
When he’s not trying to lure people, he is conducting surveillance and hunting down fugitives in the state where he can legally operate which in total has netted him about 30 to 40 fugitives total.
His first successful bounty was recorded in Castle Rock, just north of Longview, Washington.
“I think it was a girl, we have a lot of females, I believe it was a domestic violence four,” Ryerson said. “It was a charge that had she just gone to court, she wouldn’t have gotten more than two to three days in jail.”
This woman was on the run and was apparently doing drugs. Her boyfriend was also wanted and had been known to carry guns. Ryerson and his partner ended up looking for her for a couple weeks. Through information from a confidential informant, he and his partner knew that she was known to be driving about three different vehicles, and would live in and out of certain truck stops. They went into the stores of the stops and showed pictures of the woman to cashiers.
“It was a cat and mouse thing, we were missing this girl only by a couple of hours every time,” Ryerson said. “It was really getting frustrating.”
After some continued surveillance, the cats finally caught the mouse in the end. They located her at a truck stop living out of her car. They walked up to her window and knocked on the window.
“She was surprised to see us but didn’t put up a fight,” Ryerson said. “All I said was ‘well I guess you know why we’re here’ and she said ‘yeah’.”
So Ryerson had her put her hands behind her back and she went with him and his partner off to jail, where she sat for a while and that’s when the case is pretty much over for him. He’s done his job, according to him.
Even though Ryerson has reeled in a few bounties, he says it really doesn’t pay well. When they do score a bounty, 10% of the total bail is split between him and his partner.
“They said on the department of licensing website, through the state of Washington, that you could expect to make anywhere between 45–75 grand in your first year,” he said.
Ryerson has been at it for one year exactly, but has he made it to this number range?
“Not that much, not even close,” he said. “ I can tell you it’s nowhere even close to that.”
He even went on to talk about how the academy is painting this grand picture of the business and luring people in.
“You’re paying them (Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission) $500 just to take the test,” he said. “You’re paying money to get certified on your weapon, paying another $500 for annual license renewal. They’re trying to paint a picture so they can entice people into the business, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a bold-faced lie. It’s just frustrating.”
Ryerson has put nearly $5,000 into all his gear, training and certifications. He is adamant about making that money back and it’s part of what keeps him going. So how can he and these other bounty hunters try and make their money back?
They can hunt for the fugitives with the big bails that pay out.
But on the same token, it’s nearly impossible to catch them, according to Ryerson.
“Generally most people out on big bonds show up for court — if they run, they run far and hide in deep, dark places,” Ryerson said. “Most guys with bad offenses are intent on not going back to jail.”
Ryerson mentioned that at the moment there is a guy somewhere in Longview, Washington right now that is worth about $125,000. The fugitive stole meth from his dealer that’s worth a little more than the price on his own head. If brought in, bounty hunters could receive 10% of that price. However, these larger fish are often dangerous.
It begs the question of why does Ryerson do this dangerous work for little or no pay? How does he compose himself for this work?
“You have to mentally prepare for the worst, but expect the best,” Ryerson said. “A lot of times knowing the history of an individual, sometimes you’re dealing with people who are known to pack guns and they have violent felonies in their past.”
Ryerson wears body armor, carries a taser, pepper spray, an FN 5.7 handgun and has access to his personal AR-15 that often remains in his trunk. Not to mention he is decked out in tactical pants, shirt and essentially looks like a police or SWAT officer. He prides himself on looking and being professional.
He also does acknowledge that it’s a very dangerous job. It’s a part of the career that he, other bounty hunters and bail bondsmen live with.
It’s a job that, according to Bill Winfield, owner of All-Pro Bail Bonds in Vancouver, Washington, can easily get you killed.
“I’ve lost a few bounty hunters. You’re not bailing people out of church,” Winfield said. “The more training you have, the more successful of a bounty hunter you’ll be.”
Ryerson remains prepared and well-trained when he is on the job, and has plenty of examples of how he has handled situations professionally and safely.
One particular night out in Kelso, Washington, Ryerson and his partner were about to enter a home to retrieve an individual who has been known to be a drug addict and had drug charges. They had been looking for this individual for two weeks when they find out that he was living in an attic above the garage of a home.
“This guy was in his mid-fifties, and we could tell just by his photograph that he was a druggie,” Ryerson said. “He looked like he was about 75, it’s so sad to see photographs of some of these folks.”
It was very dark when Ryerson and his partner approached the home, they snuck up the side of the house where they came across a boat. They bobbed and weaved in between the boat and the side of the house and came around to enter an open garage door where it was pitch black inside, where they started to hear noise coming from above in the attic.
“There was probably four or five of them and there was some crazed girl up there that was screaming and crying — sounded like she was getting beat,” Ryerson recalled.
As they got further into the garage all of the sudden they heard footsteps coming down the staircase from the attic into the garage. That was when Ryerson and his partner drew their weapons. As the individual got to the bottom of the stairs, they lit up the person with their flashlights on their weapons, apprehended the individual and asked if their man was up in the attic. He told Ryerson he was up there and after cuffing the person, they told him to stay put and be quiet and then proceeded to make their way up the stairs.
“We had our guns drawn because like I said, we knew there were drugs, somebody was screaming and we didn’t know what was going on,” Ryerson said. “When we got up there we immediately saw our guy we’re looking for and he didn’t put up a fight or anything.”
They put him in cuffs and holstered their weapons and took him away down the stairs. Unfortunately for Ryerson, the fun was over, as they had to sit in booking for the next four hours until Kelso County Jail was able to take the individual in because it happened to be on Memorial Day weekend.
“Usually its like 15 minutes, usually it’s pretty quick,” he said. “That night, that guy took four hours.”
Regardless, they ended up getting their bounty and getting paid. Ryerson and his partner were able to work together and safely secure an individual. However, partners are not always so reliable as this particular instance.
This, in Ryerson’s eyes, happens to be another big drawback of the job.
Lately he has been having some unfortunate luck when it comes to his partner being dependable and loyal.
“I was lied to and cheated out of money,” he said. “My partner shortchanged me.”
He’s referring to a bounty that was a 19-year-old man who was worth $2,000. Ryerson and his partner had been working the bounty for a couple weeks. The day came when he and his partner were going to go out and get the guy. He arrived home from his day job at Amazon and waited for his partner to call. The call never came.
“He had decided at some point during the day that he was going to go get him himself,” he said. “I should’ve been there to apprehend him. My partner wanted all the money to himself.”
His partner netted $1,875 of the total bounty, and paid Ryerson $125 to essentially sit in the hospital with the kid because his partner had to use a taser on him, causing the fugitive to fall and shatter his jaw.
A second time was when his partner lied to him about an individual they had been looking for was booked into jail already. After Ryerson did a little research of his own by looking him up the Clark County jail roster and finding the individual not listed there, he became a little curious as to why his partner would lie about that.
He took it a step further and went over to the neighborhood where he and his partner had been conducting surveillance. A neighbor told Ryerson that an individual with a badge and plain clothes had been around but did not resemble Ryerson’s partner.
“He (Ryerson’s partner) had told me about a guy who was a cop that used to work for the bail bonds company we work for,” Ryerson said. “Instead of him just telling me the bail bonds company gave him the case, he lies to me and tells me the guy is in jail.”
Ryerson is still unsure as to what the truth is, but he has a hunch that his partner and this new bounty hunter teamed up and went and got the guy and that his partner just lied to him. Whatever the case is, Ryerson is now out $150 as the fugitive was worth $300.
“When I called my partner back and told him that I looked up the jail roster and couldn’t find our guy, he just said ‘Oh, really, that’s weird’,” Ryerson said. “I also told him I went to the neighborhood and talked to the neighbor, and then, click, he hung up on me.”
With partners shortchanging, people fleeing out of arm’s reach into Oregon, and low pay in general, the bounty-hunting gig is a tough one, according to Ryerson.
“It’s just challenging from every aspect — everything about it is challenging,” he said. “Had I known half of the stuff I know now, I don’t know that I would’ve pursued it.”
Ryerson says he feels extremely let down and taken advantage of due to paying for all the training and the certifications. However, he’s not giving up just yet. He’s going to take all of his academy training, weapons training, gear and certifications and try and go apply it to something else in life.
“Maybe being a police officer will be good. At least I’d get paid for the surveillance and all the side stuff,” Ryerson laughed. “Steady pay, benefits, they do pretty good. It wouldn’t be bad, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have people who I can actually count on.”
Ryerson plans on applying to either the Portland Police Department or Vancouver Police Department, and at age 50 he says he’s never been in better shape and could pass all the necessary tests that the departments throw his way.
“I think it’s going to be a lot more legitimate than what I’m trying to accomplish now.”
Until then, he’ll be working at Amazon and hanging out on the Portland Waterfront with his Alaskan Malamute, Komo, during their leisure time.
