Bounty hunter shot in face; suspect arrested

Police detained a suspected gunman who allegedly shot a bounty hunter in the face during a struggle Friday afternoon inside an abandoned El Cajon building, a police lieutenant said.

The injured bail bond recovery agent was taken to a hospital with a “throughand-through” wound — the gunshot entered then exited his face — and was released Friday night, El Cajon police Lt. Will Guerin said.

The shooting was reported around 4:15 p.m. inside a commercial building that squatters had taken over on West Lexington Avenue between South Sunshine and Van Houten avenues, Guerin said.

About 25 minutes before the shooting, two bail bond agents from Fugitive Warrants, a private bounty hunting and “fugitive recovery” company, had reported to police that they were going after a man with a warrant inside the building, Guerin said in a news release. When they called back, they reported one of the bounty hunters had been shot in the face.

El Cajon police officers rushed to the scene and evacuated the injured man, Guerin said. Police took him to a nearby fire station and paramedics took him to a hospital, where he was treated and released within a few hours.

The bounty hunters told officers that while searching the building for the man they had come for, they became involved in a confrontation with a different man inside who allegedly grabbed a handgun, Guerin said. One of the bounty hunters shot him with a stun gun, but the man allegedly tackled the other bail bond agent, punched him several times and then shot him.

The uninjured bounty hunter then shot the man again with a stun gun, and both he and the victim were able to flee the building, Guerin said.

El Cajon police surrounded the building, parking an armored vehicle near the front entrance as they ordered those inside to come out, Guerin said. Two people eventually came outside and surrendered to police, including one who had stungun darts embedded in his torso.

But that man did not have a firearm with him, and police did not know who else might be inside the building and potentially armed with the gun, Guerin said. That prompted El Cajon police to seek help from the Sheriff ’s Department’s bomb/arson unit, whose members used a robot to search and clear the abandoned building.

Once police believed nobody else was inside, they entered the building, searched it and “located evidence related” to the incident that injured the bounty hunter, Guerin said. The suspected gunman, whose name was not released, was booked into San Diego Central Jail on a previous arrest warrant for a felony probation violation while Friday’s incident remains under investigation.