• Complete a 40-hour “power of arrest” course certified by the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST).
• Complete a “power of arrest” course certified by the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services.
• Complete a 12 hour of education relating to the duties and responsibilities of a Bail Licensee certified by the Department of Insurance.

All of these requirements can be found here. Okay, so that’s the legal requirements which are fairly easy to complete since no testing is required. Now let’s list the physical and mental requirements. If you’re okay with the following then you should have no problem doing the job.

• Can you sit in your car for 10, 12 or 18 hours staring at a house?
• Are you okay with peeing in a big gulp cup in your car?
• Are okay with eating 2 day old fast food?
• Are you okay with being spit on, punched, kicked, screamed at, pepper sprayed or tasered?
• Do you like to fight?
• Are you comfortable touching homeless people or searching homeless encampments (which may include walking through human feces)?
• Are you okay with someone pointing a loaded gun at you? This includes cops, criminals and parents or friends of criminals.
• Are you okay with being awaken at 3 in the morning by annoying phone calls from informants, defendants or parents / friends of defendants?

If you said no to any of the above questions then this job is probably not for you. However, if you said yes to the above then you may want to seek mental help.

As the defendant jumps out of the car my partner and I approach him and immediately slap the cuffs on him. Now we already know the defendant has a warrant and failed to appear in court but he insists that he just appeared and everything had been taken care of. Being the nice guy that I am, I sit him on the curb and listen patiently to his story. He tells that his paperwork is in the house and wants to get it for us. He insists that he went to court. “No, send your Father in”, I tell him. “He won’t be able to find it. I know where it is and he doesn’t.”, he says. We go back and forth for a few minutes and I finally lose my patience and tell him to get up. “You’re going to jail”.I know he didn’t go and I’m not about to let him in the house.

I lift the defendant off the ground and escort him to the car. Once inside, he starts complaining that he needs to use the bathroom and is nearly begging me to let him go back into his house to use the restroom. I’m starting to get suspicious. There are really only two reasons why someone goes to great links to get out of handcuffs. One is so they can fight and run and the other is their hiding something and they want to get rid of it. My instincts and his body language tell me that he has drugs on him. He’s not getting out of these cuffs.

A few minutes into the drive he starts to close his legs really tight and is almost in tears. “I really need to use the restroom or I’m gonna pee my pants”, he tells us. My partner alerts me that he needs gas and suggests that we let him use the bathroom at the gas station. Okay, why not. As I’m walk him to the restroom I remind him that any attempts to fight or escape will result in an immediate taser deployment (I love my taser). He agrees but what he doesn’t realize is that I’m gonna accompany him to the restroom. Once inside I remove the cuffs and stand behind him and warn him not to even sneeze. “Pee”, I tell him. Nothing. “Stage fright?”. “I can’t pee with you standing behind me”, he says. On go the cuffs. “You can pee at the jail”, I respond.

Oddly enough he stops complaining about need to relieve himself. When we arrive at the jail I ask him if he has any dope on him. I already know he does, his body language says it all. He finally admits to holding Meth. I remove it and throw it away, giving him a major break. It’s a felony to bring drugs or alcohol into a jail and San Benito County Jail is famous for jamming people up for it. Not sure why I did it, this guy’s has been a jerk since we arrested him. I guess I just have a soft spot for drug addicts. The booking goes smooth and we go on our way.

Three days later I learn that the defendant called one of our offices and complained about how he was treated. You must be kidding me. I cut this guy a major break and he complains about me. I never get complaints and believe me there have been times that I should have. Not this time, though. Anyway, last week my partner calls me laughing. He tell me that this guy rebailed through us and didn’t go to court again. Unfortunately for me I can’t be there when he arrests him. I beg him to leave any drugs on him but I would be suprised if he makes that mistake again. A couple hours later my partner calls me and tells me that he had the defendant with him and he was holding quite a bit more dope then last time. He left if in his pocket even though he was begging my partner to throw it out. All my partner says to him is “Karma”. Yes, the jail charged him with bringing drugs into a jail and based on this guys past history, he’ll do some serious jail time. I bet we don’t see him again.

There is a silver lining to this change, though. One that has saved me from completely falling apart or self destructing. I would love to go into more details about the changes in my life, but I can’t right now. So needless to say, I’ve completely lost my desire to post, I’m using all my energy just to stay focused on my job.  Business is booming right now. I’m overwhelmed with cases and have a few really nasty ones. One of them is getting a lot of my attention right now and it involves a defendant who is accused of sexually assaulting children.

I am a firm beleiver that everyone is innocent until proven guilty but the police report on this case is disturbing and it’s hard for me not to judge this guy. If the statements from the victims and witnesses are true then this guy should spend the rest of his life in jail. I will provide more details later but for now I’m going to get back to my drama filled life.

We waited for her for what seemed like 3 hours. The senior investigator seemed to be irritated with all my the questions. I was acting like child on the way to my first day of kindergarten but I didn’t care, I was nervous. He was giving me instructions about how to effect the arrest and bunch of other irrelevant information, none of which I was have retained. He may have been my senior but looking back he was the most unorganized and unprofessional investigator I have ever worked. He has since, uh, resigned from the company.

About an hour later he spots the girl and signals to me, “let’s go”. She was a very large girl, around 250 pounds and about 6 feet tall. It’s a chick I thought, what could she possible do to us. We walked across the street and told her who we were. “You’re under arrest”, he says. I had no idea what to do so I stood there like an idiot and waited for something to happen. Well something did happen. She immediately starts backing away from us and tries to turn and run. The other investigator and I attempted to grab her to get handcuffs on but she was having nothing to do with it. We struggled around a bit until she fell on the hood of a car, caving it in. Oh shit, this is not good. This bitch is going to kick our asses.

We’re struggling for a few seconds when I notice that her loose tank top had been pulled down to her waist and her breasts were exposed. It was not pretty mind you, she had more hair on her chest then me. I was thoroughly disgusted. So she starts screaming “Rape!, Rape!, their trying to rape me”. Oh great, not only am I getting my ass kicked by a girl but now I’m going to jail for attempted rape. I hate this job already. I look across the street and I see 2 San Francisco Police Officers running towards us. When they get about 10 feet from us they ask me if we need any help. Uh? I just causally respond no thanks, we got it. They turn and walk away as though they didn’t see anything. Ok, back to the fight. This girl is doing everything she can to get free. She yelling “my baby, my baby”, as though she was pregnant and we keep yelling at her to stop resisting. Finally we get her hands cuffed. What a relief! We start walking her to the car when she realizes that she was really going to jail. Here we go again. She starts kicking and thrashing about trying to head butt us. The other investigator starts yelling at me to get the leg irons from the trunk. Leg irons are just like handcuffs but are used on the ankles instead of the wrists.

I run to the trunk and am surprised to find nothing but disarray and filth in it. “Where are they?” I ask. “On the side, on the side!” he yells. I can’t find shit in his trunk, you think he would have been a little more prepared and organized. I have since learned the importance of knowing exactly where you gear is at all times. You just never know when you’re going to need something so you had better know where it is. This is actually getting funny now. I can’t find the leg irons so he tells me to hold her while he gets them. He returns and cuffs her ankles together but she is not calming down at all. I was still totally confused about how to handle this. Looking back though,  there were several other ways this could have been handled and probably with a much more peaceful result.

We are now trying to get her into the car and she is still screaming. There is now a crowd of people watching us. I’m starting to get a bit embarrassed and just want this to be overwith. I want to get her out of here. She is finally coaxed into the car but is still not giving up. She’s kicking at the windshield and spitting on the dash. Let’s go, I tell the other guy. Let’s get out of here. We finally get her across the street to the county jail and get her in a holding cell. Have you ever seen someone slam their head so hard against a wall that it bleeds? Well that’s what she was doing. It was pathetic and funny all at the same time. By the end of they day I was seriously thinking that I had chosen the wrong profession. Looking back I realized that this was not the norm and if you treat each arrest differently and every person with respect you might not have to fight them. The other investigator was an idiot and loved to bully people into an arrest. I still see him on occassion and am wondering when someone is going to teach him a lesson.

Last night, while doing another drive by, I noticed 7 or 8 large Hispanic males hanging around in front of the house drinking beer and hooping it up. Me and a new investigator got out of my car and stood directly across the street hoping to catch a glimpse of my guy. Shorty after we arrived a car pulled up and a female and male, who matched the description of my guy jumped out of the car. They were obviously drunk, staggering drunk.

I asked the new guy what he thought and, being new, wanted to approach the guy and attempt to arrest him. “Not a good idea” I told him, “let’s call the police”. I called San Jose Police dispatch and asked for assistance. The dispatcher told me to drive around the block and wait for an office to arrive. So we pulled around the corner and waited…

About 5 minutes later the female came stumbling around the corner and started checking us out. She wandered back and forth between my car and the corner, we could see she was concerned about our presence. This went on for maybe 5 or 10 minutes before she started yelling for someone. The name she was calling for was the same name as my defendant. Bingo! This is too good to be true. Is he really just going walk right up to us? Where’s the police? The girl was standing on the street corner when my guy comes walking up to her, he was agitateds and was waving his arms in a violent manner, shouting “Fuck off mother fuckers, I’m gonna kick your ass”. We just chuckled and watched as the female grabbed him and kept him him from approaching us. “Let him go”, I thought, “Please let him go so he can deliver himself to us”.

They turned and walked away from us but we could tell he wanted to confront us so I fired up my engine and started driving towards them. As we got close he made a half ass attempt to block my car buy was pulled back by his girlfriend. He was really drunk and really angry; not a big surprise.  As soon as we passed him I stopped the car and jumped out.  “Surprise!” His whole demeanor changed when he realized that he was getting arrested. Mr Badass was now crying like a baby, really.

Suddenly, all the guys that were hanging at his house started running towards us. Uh Oh! We need to get out of here. We shoved the defendant in the car and drove away, slowly. Just slow enough to keep them coming. Baiting them. Waiting for the police.  It worked. 5 or 6 San Jose cops saw the commotion and came flying down the street. Oops. You’re all in trouble now. I’ve never laughed so hard. You should have seen the expression on the punk’s faces. Anyway, it all ended well, no one got hurt and I got my guy.

I knew it was going to be tough to find him but was confident that he would get picked up by the police. It’s pretty tough to hide from a warrant when you’re living in a car. John was another example of how I get to know someone without actually meeting them. When you’re trying to find someone you spend a great deal of time talking to their friends and family and you inevitably learn a lot about them – their habits, where they hang out and what kind of person they are. I never judge anyone because they have been arrested, I judge them on how they live their life and how they treat the people around them. I learned that John was a decent guy who, like most of us, was struggling with life.

The most recent information told me that John left the San Jose area and went to Richmond to find work. I continued to check in with his friends and family and was hoping that he would either call me or tell someone where he was working. I was just waiting for something to point me in his direction. That never happened and last week I learned that John had been brutally murdered in Berkeley. I can’t go in to too many details about his murder but it touched me and I wonder, if I had worked this case a bit harder would he still be alive?

Christmas is also a special day for me. This is the day that I get to pick 1 or 2 really special people and show up at their house right in the middle of Christmas dinner. Imagine the surprised look on their faces when I show up. I am very selective about who I visit, too. Like Santa, I save this day for the really special people, the people who have already ran from me or the people who have told me that I will never catch them. I have a list and I check it twice too and tomorrow I have 2 very special people that I’m going to visit. I’m going to surprise them with the gift of silver bracelets and a free ride back to jail. “HO HO HO, Merry Christmas”.