Bounty Hunters Entered Wrong Home, Gun Battle Erupts: Sheriff

CYPRESS, TX — A group of Texas bounty hunters unlawfully entered a Houston-area home and engaged in a shootout with the renter, a man who turned out to be the victim of mistaken identity, according to a KTRK report.

Ricky Brannon said to the news station he was approached by the bounty hunters as he was arriving at his home in Cypress around 8 a.m. Sunday. He said they jumped out of their cars with guns while shouting at him.

"I thought we were getting robbed," Brannon, whose wife and grandchildren were home, told KTRK.

The three bounty hunters were looking for someone else, a man who does not live at the home anymore, according to the report. None of the bounty hunters had been identified as of Tuesday afternoon.

Brannon said he ran inside the home and tried to close the front door, but the men still got inside, the report states. He grabbed his gun and soon after a shootout erupted between him and the three men, Brannon said.

"I thought they were going to kill me," he told the news station.

Tekia Thompson, Brannon's wife, said one of the bounty hunters told them to "'get on the floor', or he was going to shoot us," the news station reported. The wife and kids were able to make it out unharmed as the shootout continued.

Brannon told the news station he was hit in the head with a gun, beaten and dragged outside, where sheriff's deputies were and later confirmed he was not a wanted man.

The bounty hunters are expected to be charged with burglary and felony after entry, the Harris County Sheriff's Office said to KTRK.

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