Bounty hunters and fugitive killed in dramatic shootout caught on video
New video shows a deadly shootout involving two bounty hunters inside a Texas car dealership.
The two bounty hunters were waiting there for nearly four hours for fugitive Ramon Hutchinson, reports CBS News correspondent David Begnaud.
When he arrived with what is believed to be his girlfriend, they approached him. Hutchinson tried to pull a gun from his waistband and all three went for it.
That is when Hutchinson started shooting.
Cellphone video shows the moment two bounty hunters tried to apprehend Hutchinson in the Greenville, Texas car dealership. They approach with guns drawn. Then about 20 shots ring out.
The shootout shattered windows and sent customers scrambling.
Hutchinson was killed along with F.N.G. Security and Investigations employees Fidel Garcia, Jr. and Gabriel Bernal.
The 49-year-old had an outstanding warrant for failure to appear on a first-degree drug charge in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Bernal and Garcia had traveled to Greenville from Corpus Christi to arrest Hutchinson.
"We are charged with the task of apprehending people who fail to appear in court," said Stew Peters, a bail investigator who helped track Hutchinson.
Peters then handed the investigation to Garcia.
"The target was potentially going to be in the Greenville area," Peters said. "(Garcia) then called me a little bit later on and said he was going to be at a car dealership and that was the last I heard from him."
In Texas, a bounty hunter usually carries handcuffs and a gun but cannot pretend to be an officer. They do have the authority to make arrests but only with written authorization from a bail bondsman.
"You get in situations sometimes it's hard to get out of," said Dusty Steel, who was a bounty hunter for 16 years.
"It's very dangerous because you don't have the police authority being a bounty hunter," Steel said.
It is important to note that bounty hunters are not law enforcement officials.
The owner of the car dealership told the Associated Press that the two bounty hunters identified themselves as federal agents to the general manager and a receptionist here.
CBS News has not been able to independently confirm that detail and a friend of one of the bounty hunters said he would "not misrepresent himself."