A terrified Black Texas man ended up defending himself and his family after three bounty hunters illegally forced their way into their rental home and engaged him in a gun battle during a botched arrest on Saturday, January 16.
Narrating the tense incident in an interview on ABC13, Ricky Brannon said he had just arrived home around 8 in the morning when he saw the bounty hunters exiting their vehicles with their guns drawn and yelling at him.
Fearing it was a robbery attempt, Brannon said he quickly made his way into the home and tried closing the door. The bounty hunters, however, succeeded in also entering, compelling Brannon to grab his weapon. He subsequently exchanged fire with the men inside the house.
“I thought they was gonna kill me,” he said.
Meanwhile, Brannon’s wife, children and infant grandchildren – a one-year-old and four-year-old – were in the house during the crossfire. And when his wife tried getting out of harm’s way with their daughter, she said they were confronted downstairs by one of the armed bounty hunters.
“He told us to get on the floor or he was gonna shoot us,” she recalled. “I was trying to tell him, ‘What’s going on? Who are you? I have kids in the house. I have babies in here.’”
Though Brannon’s wife and the other occupants of the house managed to get out, the crossfire between him and the other men continued. He said he eventually stopped shooting and surrendered after one of the bounty hunters alleged he was a law enforcement officer.
“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,” Brannon told ABC13.
Unarmed, Brannon said the bounty hunters assaulted him before dragging him outside the home. The sheriff’s deputies had arrived at the scene at that time. Investigators later said the bounty hunters had confronted and arrested the wrong person as the suspect they were after was a former resident of the home.
The three men also illegally entered the house. Per Texas laws, bounty hunters are barred from entering a residence without seeking approval from the occupants. They cannot also wear or be in possession of any paraphernalia that suggests they are law enforcement officers, ABC13 reported.
The bounty hunters, identified as Angel Galvan, Frederick Randle and Farukur Siddique, were subsequently arrested and charged with burglary with felony upon entering. Galvan got shot in the arm during the crossfire and had to be treated at a hospital before he was taken into custody, New York Daily News reported.
All three men have since been granted bail.
