Houston, TX – Four bounty hunters — who work for an insurance company that funds private bail bond companies — reportedly gunned down 31-year-old Walter Hutchins in Houston last week, calling into question the rules imparted on the profession.
According to Click2Houston, a Houston Police Department lieutenant at the scene said a group of men, who identified themselves to police as bounty hunters, were attempting to execute a warrant when the situation took a deadly turn.
“They were here looking for an individual that they did spot,” Houston Police Department Lt. R. Willkens said. “They found him over here inside of a vehicle. They approached the individual; the guy that was sitting in the car. When they approached, this individual shot numerous times from inside his vehicle out toward these investigators.
“One of the investigators fired a rifle only a couple of times, which struck this male and grazed him across the top of the head. Our suspect backed up, crashed into a wall. Officers heard the shots, they were close in the area. They came and gave first aid immediately to our gunshot victim and secured the scene.”
Bounty hunters in plain clothes ambushed & fatally shot Walter Hutchins in the head! They executed Hutchins and should be held responsible for this reckless and fatal pursuit! His killers had NO RIGHT to serve as judge, jury and executioner! ?: IG/jprincerespect pic.twitter.com/sqKpI8zRZ6
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) February 28, 2022
But Rap-A-Lot Records founder and proud Houston native J. Prince doesn’t buy it. Instead, he believes a disturbing clip of the incident proves he was ambushed.
“These are bounty hunters ambushing my family Walter down last night as he was leaving a place of business. You motherfuckers better be lucky I wasn’t there because y’all look like robbers and jackers to me. As you can see this looks like a hit, you should never run up on a person like this in plain clothes and no police cars at night.
“Y’all never gave him a chance to know who you were without gunning him down first. We won’t allow y’all to get away with this one by changing the narrative or justify killing a man because he has a warrant for his arrest.”
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Lt. R. Willkens Walter Hutchins had several warrants out of Harris County but obviously nothing that justified his death.
“I think he had some credit card abuse, a couple of family violence and I think maybe a burglary or something like that,” he said. “They are private investigators, from what they are telling us. They had vests, and they have placards and they have badges so they were identifying themselves before the shooting occurred.”
Christopher Powell, a private investigator with A-Mobile Bail Bonds, watched the video and said he could see why Hutchins was confused by what was going on.
“The area they’re in is Fifth Ward and obviously it’s late at night, just running up on someone in plain clothes, they don’t know what’s going on,” he told Fox26. “They don’t know if you’re gang-affiliated, if you’re doing a robbery, if you’re about to steal their car.”