WESLEY HILLS, New York—The ceiling came crashing down on the three men on the staircase. The police detective, who went first, fell into the nearby bathroom, hit his head on the iron bathtub, and was knocked unconscious. The fugitive landed on his feet in front of the two police detectives and bounty hunter, Scott Bernstein, who were standing in the narrow hall.
“The detective who’s on my right engaged him, and [the fugitive] threw him like a rag doll off to his right,” Bernstein said.
“I’m ready to go, but all of the sudden the other detective jumps on him,” he said. The man backhanded the detective, who fell down the staircase behind them, breaking his leg.
They stood face to face. Bernstein grabbed him, and the two fought. They landed in the bedroom at the other end of the hall. Bernstein tried to arrest the man. The man grabbed his wrists. “I could hear the crunching of my bones,” Bernstein said.
“So all of the sudden he starts grabbing my arm and he starts biting on it—really hard. I can show you the teeth marks,” Bernstein said. He pointed to a series of white scars near his wrist. “These are all teeth marks.”
As the two continued fighting, one of the injured officers called in backup. The S.W.A.T. team showed up, and pulled the man off Bernstein. “This guy was like Superman strength. It look five officers to help me finally restrain him,” he said.
For Bernstein, this was just another day on the job. As one of the world’s top bounty hunters, he has captured more than 6,300 fugitives. He is the founder of the Bounty Hunter Training Academy, the only nationwide elite tactical training center in the world.
He is also the founder and director of Child Recovery International (CRI), the only international child recovery agency, which has the world’s highest recovery rates. They have recovered more than 680 children and 1,500 adults—from runaways to those taken by kidnappers and human traffickers.
Bernstein sits back in a chair in his home office just outside New York City in Wesley Hills. Mug shots of recently captured criminals cover his wall of shame.
He has a kind smile, and is one of the friendliest guys you'll ever meet, but he’s a man of true grit. On a brief tangent, he casually points to a sewn patch on his wrist. “Recently I got stabbed there,” he says. “I stitched it up myself.”
He said his wife asked if he needed an anesthetic. “I said, yeah, pour me a glass of tequila.”
“So anyhow, so the guys were great,” he says, returning to his story.
Helping those in need
Bernstein is currently recruiting troops returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. As someone who has suffered more than 30 years from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he knows coming home can be one of the hardest things for a soldier.
