FULL INTERVIEW: Bounty Tank On Being A Bounty Hunter, First Experiences, Financial Realities, Music + More

Bounty Tank On Being A Bounty Hunter, First Experiences, Financial Realities, Music + More

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
What's up its way? Put angela. Ye, I'm here. This
is going to be quite interesting for all of us.
Bounty Tank is here and I'm sure you have all
seen his YouTube series which is also on tub right. Correct, yes, yes,
which is basically you going out and you're I actually
could we say this word? But you're a bounty hunter?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Correct, yep.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
But in Cleveland, Ohio, you can't say bounty hunter.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
The term is technically banned, but everyone knows us as
bounty hunters.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yes, why is bounty hunter? Why? Like, why would they
do that? It just doesn't sound.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Good or the they don't want to take accountability for
the work that goes into the actual job of bounty huntings.
I'm a bondsman first, so bounty hunt just comes with it,
but they don't want to acknowledge that basically to say
that liability wise.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
And watching your show and also reading up on you,
I saw there's not a lot of you across the nation.
It's not a job that you know. There's what about
ten thousand.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, yeah, it's not a lot. It's a dying field.
I mean it is. It's dangerous and it's just people
are getting out of the business. I mean it's a
dying breed. I'm probably the last of the Mohicans, you know,
still left.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah, but you enjoy what you do. What I do
like is how you're very humanizing to people. You know,
it's not like a kicking the door, drag somebody out.
You'll actually try to do things in a way where
you can get people to come in. They you know,
skip bail. What is it called jump bill?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Jump bill?

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, they jump bill and that means they put their deposit,
but then they didn't show up to court. And you're
not like threatening to them. It's more like I want
to help you.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Right, I mean, you gotta look at it like this.
I'm a normal human being. So I really pride myself
on treating people with respect. And because everybody goes through stuff,
everybody makes, you know, mistakes in life, so you don't
tear people down when they're at the lowest moment. So
I really strive into helping people. It's a lot of
people I deal with just on drugs. I try to
get them rehab, try to offer people jobs. I mean,

(01:59):
it's all about being a touch people in the positive way.
It's not all about kicking indoors. Yes, it's entertaining. You
want to see me kick a dooring. But if you
don't do something positive with the you know, with the
platform that you have, then what's the point of doing it?
So it gives it gives me, it feels that void
for me helping people.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Well, let's talk about how you even got to this, right.
You went to Hampton University. Yes, you graduated from school
with a nursing degree. Yep, that comes in handy sometimes.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Sometimes you got a nursery people, man, I mean, I
mean I went to school for nights, like you said,
I got my degree. I wanted to do something that
was still athletic. I didn't have to work in a
in a building all day. I wanted to be free.
So I initially looked up being a US Marshall. It
was a hiring freeze at the time. So Bonnie Hunt

(02:47):
came up next and I was like, what is this
is kind of kind of similar. So I actually started
doing it while I was in college doing clinicals. I
started a hunting and thank god, God blessed me with
finding my niche at an early age. So it's been
going since then.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
From nursing to looking for how to be a US
musha to be in a bounty hunter. I can understand
why that term though, because like hunter sounds, it does
sound harsh like.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, and then you know, the phrase bounty hunter stems
back all the way to the ateen Hundre. You know
a lot of people called slave catchers, and you know,
so it has some different meaning, you know, retrospect to hers.
So that's why the term is kind of up in
the air.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, all right, So talk to me about the first
time you ever went out on a job and what
that experience was like for you. Because it is a
dangerous job to have.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Can I be really detailed? Yes, okay, this one's not dangerous.
This is more a little bit comical. So I was
in Virginia. A bondsman gave me a chance to find somebody.
I went out looking for this guy. I went to hotel,
the hotel, the hotels. I knew he was staying at hotels.
He was on drugs. So I went to about fifteen
different hotels and finally the clerk said, yeah, he's in

(03:57):
the room. So and so, so I go to the room.
I bang on the door. I said, open up on
the kicker there, which is my famer line. Had to
bang for about five ten minutes. Finally he opened up
the door, and what I seen still haunts me today.
There was a laptop playing porn. There was a grapefruit,
and it was a Snickers and he was button naked,

(04:18):
just sitting there. So all his mind was like, get
on the floor, put your hands up. Then get up,
put your hands.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Up on the floor. Please.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
So that was my first time actually finding somebody. I mean,
it was pretty wild.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
So what was he doing with the grapefruit?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Me? I don't know and can't imagine this. I knew
what he was doing with the grapefruit Snickers off a
little different.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
I was thrown off.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
It was it was it was heterosexual point, I will
give him that.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
It was.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
So I wasn't too worried about the Snickers at that.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
You know, And I've seen you say, you know on
different occasions that the most dangerous time you ever had
was one mission in Detroit. Yes, and they actually started
shooting at you, which is definitely risk. Was that the
only time that's happened.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Then I've got shot at Yeah, I've had guns put
on me, but that's the only time that I've ever
had someone shoot at me. And I was actually running
for my life. So yeah, shout out to Detroit because
it helped me get and helped me navigate through this job,
you know what I mean, because I was out there. Yeah,
I had enough flyers thinking I'm doing something because I
got a badge, not knowing that that means nothing in

(05:24):
the streets, and I got a quick lesson.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
So yeah, and then so how did you move differently
after that? Because that, like you said, that was a
lesson learned when you were younger.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Now I know that the badge means nothing in the streets.
I mean, you got to show people respect, You got
to move a certain way. You give respect, you give
you know, you give respect back. So that helped me navigate,
not to be power tripping, not to think just because
I got this on, I could say what I want
to do what I want. You can't. Somebody will take
you out no matter who you is tough.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Have you ever was that the only time you felt
like your life was in danger? I know you said
you've had guns pulled on you, but I get.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Death threats all the time.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, but you're trying to But the truth of the
matter is you are trying to help. I am and
people know when they jump int, they're aware, like there's
only so long you can avoid that, right.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
And I'm out the police. I'm not out here solving crime,
you know, solving crime. I'm o batman. You know, if
you commit a crime, I don't recommend it, but you
know I'm not going to go arrest you. And I
don't have that authority unless I'm doing a citizens arrest.
But that's not my responsibility. I bond people out of
jail that need help getting out, and if they don't
buy by that contract, I got to go find them
or we lose money. That is it?

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Now, how do you get paid? Because sometimes these jobs
can take Like you said, you end up going to
fifteen different hotels. Sometimes things can take a couple of weeks.
You know, who knows how long it could take. So financially,
is this something that you would be like, Okay, you
can make some good money doing this.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
So being your bondsman, you can freelance. But I'm a
being a bounding excuse me, I'm a bail bondsman. So
I make my money getting people out of jail. Right,
I have to go find these people. I don't get
paid to find them That's what people don't realize. I'm
actually bounding these individuals out and they skip court on
me and I have to get them or we lose money.
So I'm not in it.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Oh my gosh. So lucratively, let's talk about some numbers.
So if somebody wanted to get into this business for
the way that you do it, is it something that
you would say, this could be something that is lucrative.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
I'll say this crime never stops. There, you go right
jumping bill jumping people, always on skip cord and commit crimes.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Now, there was a point in time when I saw
that you were getting a Netflix deal.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well I I wasn't getting a Netflix deal, Okay, No,
it was more so we were pitching today.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Okay, okay. And so actually the producers from Cops where
they on board.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
To yeah, Morgan Morgan Langley. I'm still working with them
right now. Distribution, we're going to be up. My old
episode is going to be on Real Cool and Real.
We're working there right now. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
I mean the YouTube channel is lit.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yea, thank you?

Speaker 1 (07:59):
What made you decide to even start filming this and
putting it out there for people to see?

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Honestly, I mean everybody knows that, you know, the famous dog,
And I was like, man, I got a different flavor
to this. I need to show it's a different way
to do this. You know, I don't wear tactical gear.
I'll have one's red bottom shoes and chain. You know,
CARDI your glasses, I'm out there fresh, you know. I
wanted to show kids that you can still have that look.

(08:24):
The kids want that cool factor and still do something
positive with a badge. So I wanted to be that
figure where they look at somebody with a badge and
they're not intimidated. It's like, oh, you know, maybe I
can do this. So I wanted just to stir up,
start the carture up.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
And legally you can't just go into somebody's home though, right,
how does that work? Because unless you have a search warrant,
can you Because we always see the kicking the door,
do this, do X, Y and Z, But how does
that work legally?

Speaker 2 (08:49):
So when you see me kicking in someone's door, they
have signed a contract given me the legal right to
go in. Okay, they have signed their rights away, the
co signer and the defendant. Now there's there's certain circumcasments
where there's a party involved that didn't sign the contract.
If we know the defendant is in there, we lay
eyes on them, we can legally go in there. So

(09:09):
I'm not just kicking random people doors and that's illegal.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, because I remember seeing different instances where you know,
I saw one woman had a case because they kicked
in her door and then they sat there and they
wouldn't leave, Okay, okay, yeah, and then they turned into
a whole situation because they were like, you're not even
supposed to be in this person's home. But when they
signed to get that bail money, they're also signing for
you to be able to come correct and apprehend them

(09:34):
if they don't show up signing their rights.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Way, so you better be careful. Who you signed a
bomb for women out just sign a bond for their
boyfriends in the streets. You better be careful because they
you get to mess with the church's blud were coming
for you.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
And that's a scary thing because think about people who
do that right to help someone else that's in a bind.
And that's some people put their house up, yes, and
put up you know, all whatever for a collateral just
in case something happens and something they could not show
up to court, right, and then they can't lose it.
Let me ask you this, if a person misses their
court date, is that just it or do they have
the opportunity to still like come back.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
And if they miss court, the court, the court is
going to notify me. You gonna say, hey, thank this
person miss court. You got forty five days to find them,
so we get a time frame to find them. So
they still have an opportunity to do the right thing
or turn themselves in. But most of them don't.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
You know, so oh really, the majority of them don't.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
The majority once they missed. The people that miss court,
the majority of them, they're just on the run. But
you do have a small percentage that maybe the court
messed up, or something maybe tragic happened in their life,
maybe someone died. And if they call me and talk
to me, I'm really nice. I'll give them. I'll say, hey,
all right, you got a week to get your fears intact.
You know, after the week, I'm coming. So most people don't.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah. I remember one episode I saw this guy was
at home on meth house was a mess everyone. Yeah,
that's it. Yeah, And I was thinking to myself, this
is also like this plus hoarders, you know, mixed in together.
But sometimes people take to your personality and they actually
are like, okay, you all joking and laughing while they're

(11:03):
going to turn themselves in.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah, And I'm a de escalator, you know, I'm a human,
So I like to Like I said, it's people, they're
going to jail. You don't need to be mean. You know,
I'm gonna talk to you crack jokes. You know. I
didn't let people finish their finished bottles of liquor. I
didn't let people finish they blunts before they go to jail,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
So they just give me a moment.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
You know, we will kick it in a lot of
times they get out of jail, you know, cool with them.
You know I might help them out with a job.
I might kick it with some of them. So I'm
just a normal guy.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
What would you advise somebody who's listening right now, who's like, damn,
I'm on the run, and you know I didn't take
the opportunity. I miss bell and I didn't go to
court and now I'm on the run. What is the
best way for them to handle a situation like this?

Speaker 2 (11:44):
The best way. For one, you need to realize think
about this, who signed for you? What's going to happen
to the person to sign for If your mom signed
for you, she's gonna lose money, she could lose her job,
she can lose her house. Think about the people that
are being affected by your decision. Then after you do that,
turn your ass in.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
I definitely binded somebody out of jail one time in
my life, and no, they went to court and I
but I also kept thinking until that court date happened, like,
dear God, please don't let I think it was like
a thirty thousand dollars too that I would have lost.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
Was it an ex?

Speaker 1 (12:19):
No, it was just a friend of mine and he
really really like this is a long time ago needed
the help. So you know, you just put down to
ten percent. But I was like, dear God, if he
misses this, like, I don't even know what I'm.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Were you scared when you did the application?

Speaker 1 (12:31):
I was a little I was scared. I'm not gonna lie.
I was so nervous.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Was you checking all his court days making sure he
was getting there?

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Because I knew what Dandy had to do, you know,
And I really did not like so after I was
checking and like, make sure you go to court because
it definitely was something that'll make you nervous. That's not
a small amount of money too, it's not. And so
you're right. You do have to think about who signed
for you, because some people do that with every intention
of knowing they're not going to show up right right.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
I see people screw their moms over Grandma's crazy. You know,
it couldn't be me. I wouldn't do it. I'm not
signing for nobody.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Now, you're also a rapper. Yes, let's talk about that
for a second, because and clearly you like the strip club.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
You know I didn't got out of that now. I
didn't got it. Yeah, that's old news. Yeah, I switched
it up.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Now. I bet you could get a lot of work
done in there.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
I do get a lot of work done there. I
didn't win in strip clubs and snatch money off g
strings and females owe me money.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, I know you did not.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
I swear to God that you better ask about me.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
That is a wild thing to do. So talk to
me about this music career that you have to. You
have a very clear, laid back type of style.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Okay, I mean, at first, I was scared to even
get into music because of what I do. I we're
a badge. I have a bulletproofess. People look at me
in the streets as the police. So with our culture,
you know, it's gonna be really hard for them except
me doing music. But I don't care. I take your
door into it. I've been doing well at it. I
talk about my life or what I'm doing, and I'm

(14:01):
not a street I'm not in the streets. Let me
say this. I'm not a street guy, but I am
in the streets right. So some of my music, you know,
street people can relate to because I'm talking talking about
kicking indoors. They might just be doing it for the
wrong reasons. But I'm just talking about my life and
having fun with it. You know, that's it. I love it.
I love music.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
So let me ask you this. Do you ever feel
bad like when in situations where you meet somebody and
you have to bring them in and you're like, oh man,
this is a tragic situation, Like I kind of have
a lot of sympathy for this person.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
All the time. This job plays with your heart strings
a lot. I meet so many young people on drugs,
You'll meet someone that's twenty years old and when you
see them, they look sixty because the drugs are eating
them away. So that's why I have so much of
a kind heart, where I try to direct people towards,
you know, getting rehab and getting some type of help. Man,

(14:53):
because it bothers you see someone your age right messed
up on drugs and you see how they used to
look and how they were performing in life. Unless you
don't have a soul, it bothers you. It does.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
What do you do for yourself to make sure that
you can separate, because that's not an easy job to
separate your real life and your emotions from work.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Wow, that's a good question. I take trips, I go
to the gym. I try to find as many positive
coping mechanisms as I can, because, yeah, with this job,
you're just constantly around negativity all the time, and it
will it'll whirl on you too. So I like to
take trips. I like nature. I like to be around water.
I'll kick it with my daughter, you know what I mean.

(15:33):
Take the dogs on the wall, just simple stuff to
give this therapeutic for.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Me, you know.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
And I try to stay in church, you know, as
much as I can.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, because whenever you come to the door, it's never
a good feeling for the person on the other side.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Some people be happy when I come to the door
now mostly because they know I got to show easier.
But TV people dropping shout outs and everything. Yeah, it's cool.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
And so do you think it's a job that you
feel like you can do? Like I know obviously like
you've gotten a lot of attention for it. You have
damn near a million subscribers you know on YouTube and
a show that's going to be in the works that
I feel like it's going to be on a major
streaming service or network at some point for you. Do
you see do you have a plan for when you're out?
Is because it is something that is a really heavy

(16:21):
job to have every day.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, I don't want to be fifty five years old
kicking indoors with bad needs. So my plan is to
just coach up someone like myself to learn the game
and they can do take over the hunting part. I'll
always be a bondsman because the bondsman like it's just right,
get somebody out of jail, you know what I mean.
So I'll never get out the business but I don't

(16:44):
necessarily want to be out kicking doors, and so I'm
going to just find people that are passionate about this,
have good backgrounds, you really want to learn this, and
just coach up a team where I don't have to
do that no more.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
Do a lot of people reach out to you now for.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
That, I get a ton of people to reach out.
But everybody he just wants to kick it.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Dorian or carry a gun, I definitely don't want to.
You gotta have I don't want to kick it nobody.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
You can't be if you were picked on as a kid,
I don't want you. If you just want to carry
a gun, I don't want you. I need personal people
who can learn and understand. These are regular people.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, no, absolutely, well listen, I appreciate you for coming through.
I'm going to be looking forward to everything that you
have going on. I definitely recommend everybody pay attention to
Bounty Take go to his page if you just google
it on YouTube. If you haven't seen it, I'm sure
you've seen some clips at least somewhere, but you can
flash back and you said you can see all the
episodes right on Roku.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Look season one through five you can check out on
toob Season six is now streaming right now on YouTube
and it's going crazy.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
So yeah, I let you. You have all these different
streams of income, you know.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
You gotta hustle. You gotta hustle. Yeah, I got it.
I'm a single parent. I gotta hustle when.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
It comes to you being you know, just being a
bondsman in itself? What person is a people will actually
skip out on Bill.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
I'm gonna say out of one hundred percent, I'm gonna
say about thirty percent. Most people do gotta go to court,
you know, especially if they know they're going through me, right,
But you got the vast majority that thirty percent, they
just they gonna they're gonna bust a move. Like I'm
gonna tell you this around holidays in summertime. That's when
people take off. No one wants to go to jail
in the summer, and no one wants to go to
jail around holidays.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Okay, I'll turn myself enough Christmas.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
That's what they do, all right.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
Well, Frank Frazer, thank you so much for joining us today.
It's way up, way up,