Bondsman should have skipped school.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: Tar Heel Tattler

Rambo goofed. Never should a pistol-packing bail bondsman have charged onto an Efland school playground in hot pursuit of a bond skipper. "Frankly," says Joe Shaw of Asheboro, who heads a trade group representing the state's 1,022 bondsmen, "you're not using even a little bit of common sense when you go running across a playground full of kids waving a gun."

But what comes now, after a judge in Orange County ruled that Gerald Haskins won't escape felony charges just because he's a bondsman, could shackle a trade that has long teetered between thug and cop.

The bail jumper, who got away, owed Haskins' company $2,200. Superior Court Judge Wade Barber ruled that Haskins was pursuing his business interests -- not acting as agent of the court -- in trying to catch him. That's a precedent in a state where bondsmen have widely been assumed to have arrest powers comparable to cops when a judge orders them to bring back a client.

"Bondsmen have a symbiotic relationship with the criminal-justice system," says Cole Williams, Haskins' lawyer. The district attorney...