A Black father was injured after a group of bounty hunters illegally entered his family’s Texas home while the man’s wife and young grandchildren were present.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said three bounty hunters are facing charges after they illegally entered a home in the Houston suburb of Cypress and engaged in a shootout with a resident after mistaking him for a fugitive listed on a bail warrant.
Resident Ricky Brannon told ABC13 that on Saturday, Jan. 16, three men in black tactical gear pulled up in front of his home and jumped out of a vehicle shouting with guns drawn.
It was just after 8 a.m., and Brannon had just gotten home.
The three bounty hunters have been identified as Angel Galvan, Farukur Siddique, and Frederick Randle.
“I thought we was getting robbed,” Brannon said. He tried to rush inside the home and close the door, but the men forced their way inside.
Brannon rushed to get his gun and a shootout began, as all three men fired their weapons at him.
Brannon’s wife, Tekia Thompson, tried to make it out of the house with the couple’s young grandchildren, but when she got downstairs she was met by an armed man.
“He told us to get on the floor or he was gonna shoot us,” she said. “I was trying to tell him, ‘What’s going on? Who are you? I have kids in the house. I have babies in here.'”
Thompson and the children made it out of the home, but the shootout inside continued until one of the bounty hunters claimed to be a member of law enforcement, Brannon said.
“So I put my gun down. I said, ‘Look, I’m coming out,’ and I came out. They threw the cuffs on me, and they started whaling on me,” he said.
The Houston Chronicle reported that Galvan was struck in the arm by gunfire and his accomplices fled from the home.
Brannon told ABC13 he was hit in the head with gun and taken outside to sheriff’s deputies. The deputies supposedly had responded to multiple 911 calls about shots fired.
The Houston Chronicle reported that when authorities arrived Brannon was being detained by three bounty hunters.
Authorities disarmed the bounty hunters and sent Galvan to a hospital to be treated for his non-life threatening injuries. They also conducted interviews with the two other bounty hunters.
According to state law, the intruders acted illegally, The law dictates that bounty hunters cannot enter a home without permission from the residents, nor can they pose as an officer or any federal agent by wearing, carrying or displaying a badge. All other family members in the home were unharmed.
Investigators said the fugitive the men were seeking no longer lives in the home. The bounty hunters will be charged with burglary and felony after entry. The men were released on bond on the conditions that they do not have weapons and have no contact with residents of the home.
