He thought he was filming the police, but they turned out to be bounty hunters.
Two bounty hunters lay in wait at a Greenville, Texas car dealership for hours, before drawing weapons to apprehend their quarry, which led to a shootout that left both men, and their suspect dead from gunshot wounds.
The pair of bounty hunters from Corpus Cristi had told the business owner that they were federal agents, before Fidel Garcia Jr. and his partner Gabriel Bernal confronted the suspect in plain view of the Nissan dealership’s employees and customers.
A witness caught the flurry of shots on camera from only thirty feet away.
In six seconds, 20 shots were fired.
All three men died.
Amazingly, no innocent bystanders were hurt.
St. Paul Police had warned the bounty hunters that the suspect was extremely dangerous, and Hutchinson was wanted for multiple felonies.
Hutchinson was wanted for felony methamphetamine and DWI charges.
Texas law restricts bounty hunting to licensed peace officers, private investigators, and licensed security guards.
The two deceased bounty hunters were not wearing insignia, which is a felony offense when acting on behalf of the surety or bail bondsman who bailed the criminal suspect out of jail.
Garcia was a licensed private investigator as his professional profile – via Google cache – indicates.
His partner Bernal was also licensed in Texas as a private security guard with Level II training.
Unfortunately, Garcia’s ruse about being federal agents exposed a private business to harm, nearly resulted in innocent deaths and in the end cost he and his partner their lives.
It’s a reminder that private business owners should always ask for identifying information from anyone claiming to be law enforcement.
A simple request for the bounty hunters’ badge and serial numbers would’ve been sufficient for this car dealership to have avoided a tragic situation on their property.
If it wasn’t for one intrepid citizen journalist using his phone to record the police – or people he thought were cops – we’d likely have no idea how the three men wound up dead.
The post Two Texas Bounty Hunters Die In Shootout With Suspect Caught On Camera appeared first on PINAC News.