Richard Bowden Interview No. 2, July 30, 2008

33 ORAL HISTORY OF RICHARD KIRKLAND BOWDEN Second Interview July 30, 2008 This interview is being conducted on behalf of the Oral History Project of the Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. The interviewee is Richard Kirkland Bowden, and the interviewer is Joshua Klein. The interview took place on July 30, 2008. This is the second interview. Mr. Klein: I’m going to start by asking you – in our earlier interview, we had you joining the Marshals Service, and we talked about the activities in Mississippi that you were on duty for then, and now I’m going to ask you about your activities in the District of Columbia during the early days of your Marshal service. What were the duties of a Deputy U.S. Marshal? Mr. Bowden: The Marshals Service in the District of Columbia wears two hats – that is, they serve as the federal law enforcement officer for the District of Columbia, executing and carrying out the commands of the federal courts. They also serve the local courts, because Congress mandated that the United States Marshal will attend all courts in the District of Columbia. At that time it was called the Court of General Sessions, and before then, when I first came on, it was the Municipal Court, then changed to the Court of General Sessions. The U.S. Attorney in those days prosecuted common-law cases in the United States District Court, because the local court did not have jurisdiction. Your robberies, your unauthorized use of motor vehicles, rape charges, serious assaults, weapons cases, were all tried in United States District Court. The Municipal Court/Court of General Sessions at the time handled the misdemeanors or minor cases. So we manned both courts, 34 “we” being the Marshals Service. It was not unusual for the United States District Court to have in the cellblock downstairs on a daily basis, maybe 100 people in custody, and probably an equal amount or a little more in the Municipal Court/Court of General Sessions, which at that time was located between 4 and th 5 on E and F Streets. And there was a juvenile court component to that. The th manpower was distributed between two courts, and I suspect that at one time we had close to 200 people, marshals, assigned to both courts. What drove that number was the process – the court orders – that were issued out of both courts. There’s no sheriff in the District of Columbia, so the work that the sheriff would perform in service of process or service of court orders was done by the United States Marshals Office. And that ranged from subpoenas to juvenile hearings, small claims lawsuits, divorce lawsuits – whatever lawsuit was filed in the District of Columbia, and a court order or the summons had to be served was served through the United States Marshals Service. Therefore, manpower was needed in order to serve those processes. Mr. Klein: They were all served by deputy marshals? Mr. Bowden: Yes. So you had to physically go to the residence, knock on the door, and give the process to the named person in the complaint as well as the businesses if they were named as defendants in the complaint. After a judgment in the civil case was issued and recovery to be made for the plaintiff, it took several forms. Some were the seized property that had to be auctioned off in order to satisfy a judgment. In some occasions, if the defendant was a business place doing business in the District of Columbia and had a cash register, or cash was being 35 exchanged for merchandise, a Fieri Facias would be issued, which required a bond be paid by the plaintiff in order to indemnify the Marshal from any unlawful seizure of property, and the Marshal would go to the business place and physically seize money to satisfy judgment. Mr. Klein: Would you take the money directly out of the cash register? Mr. Bowden: Take the money out of the cash register, or maybe it was kept in a cigar box. Wherever the money in the business place was kept, we’d seize the money, seize whatever money was necessary to satisfy the judgment. If it was a residence or a place where there was not a cash register, then a replevin would be issued, and along with an appraisal after a bond had been set to indemnify the Marshals Service from any lawsuit for unlawful seizure, we would go out with the appraiser and seize twice the value of the judgment, and then we would have to store that property in a safe and secure place. Oftentimes we would contract with a storage company, two or three storage companies would be available to safely keep the property until it was disposed of, either by public auction or the judgment had been satisfied by other means and the property released. If there was jewelry, we would seize it and put it in a safe deposit box in a bank. The Marshals Service would pay the rent. We had some safe deposit boxes that we maintained for that purpose, pay the rent and the plaintiffs would be responsible for reimbursing the Marshals Service for the rental after the judgment had been satisfied. If it’s an automobile, we would seize it, store it, and given time, it also would be auctioned off. All these auctions are public auctions. We’d advertise in the newspaper of a 36 public auction, post it in a conspicuous place, generally post it at the entrances to the courthouse that an auction was to be held, list the names, the property. Mr. Klein: Was there some administrative office in the Marshals Service that would take care of lots of these details? How would it function? Mr. Bowden: Yes. That’s an Administrative Clerk’s desk. There were two desks, an Administrative Services desk and a Criminal desk. And the administrative officer is the one, the seized-property officer, as it’s now called, the administrative officer in those days who would keep account of the property and its location until it’s disposed of. That was the unit and it was their responsibility. Each district, that is, each United States Marshals Service, was responsible for its own maintenance and auctioning of each public issue; it was not under headquarters control; it was done within the district. We also seized, under the Admiralty law, vessels. Seizing of vessels is a little more complex, if you will, than seizing, shall we say, an automobile. Because an automobile is on land, and in most cases, a vessel is in the water. So to move it, to store it in a safe place, is cost-prohibitive. So what you have to do then is, once you seize it, you have to post a guard on it 24 hours to make certain it will be there when you need it. On some rare occasions, we may totally disable a vessel so it couldn’t be moved. You run the risk of someone moving it. Generally speaking, you would seize it and post someone on it 24 hours to make sure it’s not moved. Mr. Klein: These were vessels that were in the Potomac or Anacostia River, in the District? Mr. Bowden: In the river that is contiguous to the District of Columbia. If it was out to sea, it was free. Out to sea, it’s beyond the boundaries of the United States, it was free 37 of court seizure. If it was within the boundaries of the United States, the district in which it’s located would be the responsible district. That is, the U.S. Marshals Service in that district would be responsible to seize it and to maintain custody of it. In the winter, you had to almost keep it running so it wouldn’t freeze up. So there’s a little more involved in seizing a vessel than in seizing an automobile. Mr. Klein: With the seizures, a lot of them must have been confrontational situations. What was it like to go in and seize someone’s property from their home or business? Mr. Bowden: There were some confrontations, some were calmer. I remember we went out to seize an automobile and you had to seize an automobile while it was on public property. You didn’t have the authority to go on private property and seize an automobile. I remember going with a deputy, who’s a senior deputy at the time, we went out to seize an automobile. The owner of the automobile came out of the home and said, “I want to get something out of the car.” The senior deputy permitted him to do that but got in the car with him, and the guy drove around the street in the alley, then drove it up into the back yard with the deputy in it, so we couldn’t seize it because it was on private property. I thought that was comical. You had some confrontations in the home where you’re seizing property, nothing violent, these are verbal confrontations, if you will. There was a law at one time but I think it’s been stricken. I think the Supreme Court struck it down, but in the District, replevin, it was very easy to come by, and you also had an attachment before judgment, called the ABJ attachment. That usually stemmed out of a purchasing contract. Some department stores in the District of Columbia and furniture stores in the District of Columbia would give a citizen a contract to let 38 them buy furniture on credit, a contract to pay “x” number of dollars per month on the furniture or the appliance that would be delivered to the residence, and the person for whatever reason fell behind in payment. The merchant would come in and apply for an attachment before judgment and got a court order, present it to the Marshals Office to execute. So we would go and seize the property before judgment. On the court order would list, identify, the property based on the sales contract. The sales contract would say, “one refrigerator, brand ABC, serial number, model number.” We’d locate that refrigerator in the home and seize whatever property was on the court order. I’m not sure whether there was a law or a tradition, but you had to leave enough in the home for the family to continue to exist. I don’t want to say it’s a law, because I haven’t seen it in print. So when you are talking about furniture, a 3-bedroom apartment, you had to leave a bed, but the table and chairs in the kitchen you would take. You’d have to leave plates or something to eat off. It’s almost a judgment call for the deputy, if you will. You must understand that that’s not one of the things that we enjoyed doing. It’s a court order and the Marshals Service doesn’t have the prerogative to say, “Well, I’ll do this court order but I won’t do that court order.” A court order is a court order. All of these we’re talking about are court orders so you’re obligated to execute them. The degree of execution is kind of a judgment call on the deputy’s part. I’m talking about early in my career. So that was time-consuming, and it was scheduled generally at night when folk were home. The merchant had to be there, or a representative of the merchant had to be there, to help identify the 39 property. And if the person wanted to satisfy the judgment then and there, then the merchant had to be there in order to accept the satisfaction of judgment. A lot of time, a lot of our energy and time was spent during the day with evictions. As I said earlier, there was no sheriff in the District of Columbia, so residential evictions were executed by the United States Marshals Service. That was a painful order to execute. No one enjoyed doing that. But we didn’t have permission not to do it. I have on several occasions personally given the family money out of my pocket in order to satisfy the judgment so they can stay, with the hope that I’d get my money back. I’ve done evictions where there were children, small children, involved, and I just couldn’t put them on the street. And one time, a week before Christmas, the Christmas tree was decorated, and we had to put them on the street. I want the listeners, the readers, to know that that was not a happy occasion for us, for the Marshals Service, but there was a court order that we had to execute. The court order in Mississippi, we wanted to do it. See the difference? Mr. Klein: Your job was to take the court order and execute it. Mr. Bowden: And execute it. That was the job. Not to evaluate it. Our mission was to execute the court order, not to question the wherewithal of the court order to be executed. Mr. Klein: Let me ask you about service of process. Did people try to evade service? What kind of stories would happen with that? Mr. Bowden: Oh yes. Contrary to what happens in the movies, in a civil process, you cannot use subtlety. You must properly identify yourself at the door, at the residence or the business place, to the person in charge, properly identify yourself, and tell 40 them why you are there. If they refuse to accept the process, that is, take it from your hand to their hand, if you, as the Marshal, totally satisfied yourself that this was the person named in the complaint, the summons and complaint, then you can leave it. If it’s a business place, it should be left with the person named in the complaint or that person’s authorized agent to accept civil process, and you had to get the cooperation of the authorized agent to say I am the authorized agent to accept the complaint. If no one in a business place steps forward as the authorized agent to accept, you must give it to the person named in the complaint. Or if that person isn’t available, you leave the premises. A resident, the most effective service is to give it personally to the person named in the summons and complaint. There are provisions to give it to someone living in the premises who is above the age of consent, and you can leave it with that person and name that person, under Rule 4 of the Civil Rules of Procedure. That’s not the most effective way, because if the defendant doesn’t answer the complaint, the moving party may not be able to get a judgment. It all depends on whether the court is satisfied that the named defendant got notice. Now there are some court orders you can post on the property. Landlord/Tenant complaints can be posted on the property. You’re supposed to make three endeavors to give the complaint to the named defendant in a Landlord/Tenant case. If you are unable to locate the defendant or another person, after three attempts, you are permitted to post it, meaning to tape it, tack it, on the entrance to the property. I want you to understand that in some sections of the District of Columbia in those days eviction notices ran rampant. As I look back on it, an 41 attempt by the landlord to intimidate the tenant to pay the rent on time, also it let the tenant know that an eviction is impending, and it’s an intimidation, a legal intimidation, actually, but an intimidation. Let me describe for you how manpower was dispersed or utilized. In those days, there were 14 Metropolitan Police Precincts, so the District was divided by the Metropolitan Police into 14 different sections. We adopted – we, the Marshals Service – adopted the geographical setting for the assignment of personnel. According to the workload in the Marshals Service, “x” number of deputies were assigned to a precinct. When I say workload, I’m talking about service of process, because out in the community or outside of the courthouse, that’s where the larger portion of our manpower was spent, manpower-wise, serving process. So if a particular district geographically – When I say district, let me change district – if a precinct geographically received the bulk of the summonses and complaints, a commensurate number of deputies would be assigned to that district police precinct. And within that precinct, it was split up in blocks per deputy. The analogy would be the same as the mailman, as you know the mailman today, in terms of territory, responsible territory. So if you looked at the map of the District of Columbia police precincts, management would know who was assigned to a particular street. There were supervisors who were responsible for “x” number of precincts, and deputies were assigned areas within the precinct. So when the process on a daily basis came to the Marshals Service, they were put into pigeonholes according to geographical location and dispersed to the deputies. So if you wanted to determine, you as a manager wanted to determine the status 42 of a particular process, you got an inquiry from an attorney who gave you an address, you didn’t need a case number, you needed an address, you could go to the particular deputy who was responsible for that address and get an answer as to the status. Understand that in some precincts, deputies on a daily basis can have 250 pieces to process, 60% of those would probably be landlord/tenant, small claims, and landlord/tenant is easy to get rid of: you had to go to the address to leave it. As a practical matter, you didn’t make three endeavors to give it to the person, because it just wasn’t practical. When you have 150-200 landlord/tenant complaints, it’s not practical to go there three times just to leave it the third time. But other process, you would make two or three endeavors on it because you want to give it to the person named, otherwise, if you sent it back, two or three weeks later you’re going to get it back, as an alias, and you have to go through it all over again – so you may as well do it right the first time and be done with that particular process. But I was trying to give you a picture as to what the manpower requirements were. Mr. Klein: What was your area? It may have changed over the years, but what part of town were you working in? Mr. Bowden: Northeast. In those days it was called No. 9 precinct and then it became No. 12 precinct, but primarily I had from Massachusetts Avenue and North Capitol Street, north, to New York Avenue, and North Capitol Street over to 15 Street th Northeast and north to New York Avenue. And then, of course, manpower got a little larger, that’s what I had when I first went into the field. And that was from 1964 to when Judge Bryant came on, 1966 or so. 43 Mr. Klein: Let me also ask, you say manpower, were all deputy marshals men then? Mr. Bowden: Yes. The first female Deputy came some time in 1968 or 1969. That’s a good question. I don’t have the exact date. We’ll try to get that date, when the first female was assigned or sworn in. While we’re talking about females, as you know, we also have a responsibility of transporting and moving prisoners within the District of Columbia and outside the District of Columbia, from this jurisdiction to other jurisdictions to institutions. Before we had female deputies, if you had to take – In those days, we had a lot of prisoner movement to institutions for drug rehabilitation. Lexington, Kentucky, was one, and Danbury, Connecticut was the other. Lexington, Kentucky, was the most famous. A person who was convicted or in custody for drug conviction, it was determined he would need to go – before they opened up Danbury, went to Lexington, Kentucky, and it was the Marshals Service’s responsibility, the Bureau of Prison did not have it, because it was presentence. There were two ways to get them there in those days, one by car and the other by train. Sometimes they would hold the defendants in the District of Columbia until they got enough to put on the train. So we’d go to D.C. Jail, put them in restraints, take them to Union Station and lease a car on the train, and two deputies, one at each end of the car, and you rode from here to Lexington, Kentucky, a 12-hour ride. Mr. Klein: With a car full? Mr. Bowden: With the car full of inmates. All men. And generally, they would have a load for you to bring back. Mr. Klein: Those are people who had completed their treatment and were coming back? 44 Mr. Bowden: If not, then you deadhead back, but generally they would try to schedule it so that it wouldn’t be a wasted trip. Twelve hours, two deputies, a carload of inmates. By car, that’s how we transported females. There were two ladies who were assigned to the cellblock in this District Court who were matrons. On a short trip with a female, one of them would go. If it was a long overnight trip, they would deputize a female employee, that is, swear the female in for that purpose. Or the deputy could select their wife or significant other, a female, who would be sworn in for that purpose and paid for that purpose to make that trip. Mr. Klein: Those are people without law enforcement training, but they were female chaperones? Mr. Bowden: Yes. They didn’t have any security responsibility. The only purpose was for obvious reasons. If the female needed to go, have a personal relief, the female inmate had to go on a personal relief, a female would go with that person. And the deputy would pick and choose where that activity would take place, pick a secure place, that he, the deputy, could stand outside and secure, make certain the inmate was there when they needed relief. There has been an incidence where that didn’t take place. It’s your responsibility to make sure whatever place you use is a secure place. Mr. Klein: Now, the car trips would be a personal vehicle? The deputy would use his own car? Mr. Bowden: That’s right. The government did not start providing transportation for the marshals until very late in 1970s, I believe. Way into the 1970s. Prior to then, use a POV and you then bill the government for mileage. 45 Mr. Klein: Would the inmates in the car trip and the train trip be in prison clothes or with restraints on? Mr. Bowden: Prison clothes and restraints. Mr. Klein: So how did people react as you’re doing your car trip, you have someone in prison clothes in the back seat, and you get out at the gas station to go to the restroom? Mr. Bowden: You try to pick your spots where you would not embarrass the inmate. And some inmates, you would dress out in civilian clothes for that reason, so they wouldn’t attract attention, and you would take a coat and put it over the handcuffs with the waist chain off so they could walk. You’d take the leg irons off and walk close to them, try to minimize the embarrassment or the public being aware of what’s going on. If you make that trip frequent enough, you know where the local police stations are, so you try to make it to a city where you knew the local police and use their facilities. Mr. Klein: I imagine also the Marshal would sometimes need a break, if it’s a 12-hour drive. Would you do that at a police station? Mr. Bowden: If there are two of us, often times you’d drive in to a fast food place because many of them have easy access in and easy access out to the bathrooms. You didn’t necessarily have to go through the audience in the sit-down section, just go in and come right out, and you order up food through the drive-in window, stay in the car and get the food. You just worked it out. You try to minimize the exposure. 46 Mr. Klein: This was the same process you used for extraditions on warrants or for writs in other jurisdictions? Mr. Bowden: Same process. Handling prisoners was handling prisoners. Same security. Same procedure. Maximum security was always used any time you take an inmate out of an institution, use maximum restraints. So you got personal with the inmate in terms of cleanliness. If they had to go to the bathroom and you didn’t take the handcuffs off, you had to clean the person. Take the handcuffs off and you run a risk. It’s a judgment call on the deputy whether or not to leave the handcuffs on. Mr. Klein: Would you take different measures according to the inmate? Mr. Bowden: Yes. Oliver Wendel Holmes Morgan was picked up for impersonating a lawyer in the District of Columbia. Tried several cases successfully in the federal courts in the District of Columbia, was not a member of the bar, had not gone to law school, ever. After he was sentenced, I was asked to take him to Lewisburg. I was getting ready to put handcuffs on him. Mr. Klein: Here in this district, in the federal court building? Mr. Bowden: In this courthouse. He was sentenced in Courtroom 15. I want to say Judge Walsh, but don’t hold me to it. I was about to put the handcuffs on him. He said, “Marshal, you don’t have to put the handcuffs on me, I’m an attorney.” I said, “Mr. Morgan, you have been convicted of impersonating an attorney. I have to handcuff you.” The level of security with him was different than the level of security for a person who was charged with armed robbery with a gun, say. But he was still a defendant, so he had handcuffs. 47 Mr. Klein: How many of these trips would you take, would an average deputy take, in a year or a month during the mid 1960s or late 1960s? Mr. Bowden: I can’t tell you. You could almost be guaranteed one or two. Mr. Klein: Did anyone every try to escape on you? Mr. Bowden: Not on me. I’ve been fortunate enough to create the kind of atmosphere with the defendant. It all begins with the first meeting in the institution, as to how you address the inmate, how you tell the inmate what they are expected to do, or how they are expected to act, and what’s going to happen. As long as you give them that alert and stay alert and let them know that you are there for business and business only, it minimizes it. I cannot recall anyone successfully escaping from a deputy marshal in transporting in the District of Columbia. I’m not aware of it. Because the way we train the Deputy is to treat everybody as human beings but let them know that they are in custody, and they will be in custody from here to their destination, and we plan to successfully get them to their destination. How they act in between is determined by how we react in between. So once they understand that, it minimizes the efforts. Mr. Klein: What about bringing people between the courthouse and the jail, the Marshals did that every day? Mr. Bowden: Every day. Two or three times a day, which is a manpower- and time-consuming process. Mr. Klein: Was it in a bus, or what was the process? Mr. Bowden: Several buses. At one point, we were moving 300 people a day between D.C. Jail and both courts. We would start 5:30, 6:00 in the morning, two buses. Two 48 buses and two vans going out of D.C. Jail. Each bus was a 54-passenger bus. That’s 100 people. Then come back and make a second trip. Mr. Klein: How many marshals on each bus? Mr. Bowden: Two, three, with a driver. Mr. Klein: The driver was a marshal too? Mr. Bowden: Sometimes they were contract drivers, a program called WAE, when actually employed. They didn’t have any power of arrest. They didn’t carry a weapon. Strictly a chauffeur/bus driver, if you will. And then there were occasions where deputies would drive the bus because they were qualified to drive a bus. And particularly if we were moving prisoners that we knew were involved in some gang-related stuff or high-profile cases or something, we would have extra security on the bus. Mr. Klein: Where would the deputy stand or sit on the bus? How were they each armed? Mr. Bowden: The bus is caged. It’s specifically designed to transport prisoners. They were converted school buses. They were transportation buses, not a Greyhound bus, but they had bars and mesh wire, and there would be a cage between the driver and the inmates, and that’s where the deputy would sit. So the deputy is locked in between the driver and the inmates. And then at the back of the bus, there’s also a cage where a deputy would be, so he could watch from the back. So you had views from the back and views from the front. So the driver’s responsibility would be to negotiate the traffic. Oftentimes, we would have a van to carry what we call a separation, a prisoner who was not in population for whatever reason. Mr. Klein Just for clarity, what reasons would an inmate not be in the general population? 49 Mr. Bowden: Maybe a witness for the government, against someone who’s in custody, who may have a different sexual lifestyle, got to keep them separated. Mr. Klein: So usually inmates who needed protection from the rest of the population? Mr. Bowden: Right. And then there were some who had not been declared mentally insane by the court but we felt that that person did not need to be, for our purpose, in the general population because of the way they had reacted or created a disturbance. Then some who, in this business long enough, some of them rotate in and out of jail, and you know before the day is over, he’s going back to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital – why put him in the general population where you know he’s going to have a problem, and then you have to go in there to deal with that problem? Mr. Klein: Where was the jail located? Mr. Bowden: 19 and C Street, S.E. Generally where it is now, but it was closer to th Independence Avenue, really 19 and Independence Avenue. th Mr. Klein: And in those days, who ran the jail? Mr. Bowden: The Department of Corrections. Mr. Klein: Would you take them up to the — Mr. Bowden: Inside the institution. Mr. Klein: And then you were done? Did people ever try to escape off the bus? Mr. Bowden: Yes. We had occasions where they would not come off the bus when the load came off the bus, try to hide in the back and hope that you wouldn’t check the bus to see whether or not there was someone still on. You did a headcount. If you put 28 people on the bus, 28 people should get off. Mr. Klein: If there are 26, you know you’ve got a problem. 50 Mr. Bowden: We had a couple of cases where someone tried to intercept the bus between the two points, one or two occasions, but were not successful. Mr. Klein: Were you on the bus? Mr. Bowden: I was not involved. Mr. Klein: These were people planning ambushes? Mr. Bowden: There was a shoot-out. Mr. Klein: How would they do it? Would they block the road? Mr. Bowden: Yes, that’s what the attempt was. Mr. Klein: And then were there problems on the bus trips also with inmates? Mr. Bowden: Oh yes. Almost on a regular basis. There were inmates who had beefs, if you will, with other inmates. Remember, they’re housed separately in the institutions. But there’s not a separation order on them when we get them. If there’s a separation order from the court to keep them separated, then that’s where the van comes in. You don’t put them in the general population on the bus, you put them in the van. But sometimes that conflict is an internal conflict, neighborhoods internal conflict, had nothing to do with the charges against them. Neither one of them is a government witness, nobody knows about this conflict but the two of them. Could’ve been something that happened in childhood, on the playground, you never know, but once they’re in this close proximity, then the confrontation can take place. Mr. Klein: So how would you break that up if you’re in the cage in the bus? Mr. Bowden: You go in there and stop it, unlock it, go in there, and break it up. Plain and simple. You do it carefully. Obviously if you’ve got a weapon on you, you don’t 51 go out there with your weapon. You give your weapon to your partner. If you are close enough to the courthouse, you just wait until you get to the courthouse and deal with it at the courthouse. You do whatever necessary to maintain security and keep somebody from getting killed. If it’s a fist fight, there’s not much fistfighting they’ll be able to do in full restraint. It’s a kicking and pushing and shoving type of thing. So just wait until you get to a safe place where you can safely go in and break it up. But you never jeopardize the operation because of what’s going on in there. Mr. Klein: Meaning? Mr. Bowden: I’m not going to open this gate if there are eight people in there in a scuffle and I’m one person. I’m going to get to a safer place, get inside here, get the doors closed, and then we’ll deal with it. Mr. Klein: Just for the mechanics of how it works, would the bus drive right into the courthouse? Mr. Bowden: Yes. Goes right on in the courthouse, the doors come up, come in the courthouse, doors come down, then you go ahead and do what you have to do. Mr. Klein: So while the bus is loading and unloading, the doors are down and they can’t get out. Mr. Bowden: You don’t want a mass escape. Mr. Klein: Should we keep going for a little bit? We didn’t get to the part so far about in the courthouse. Is there more to cover on outside the courthouse? Mr. Bowden: No. On the evictions, your responsibility, of course, is to make sure that the property belonging to the defendant is put in a safe environment. It has to be 52 taken off of the private property and put on public property, so you notify the Metropolitan Police. They have given us a schedule of evictions, so they know what addresses are being evicted, and it’s their responsibility, the Metropolitan Police’s responsibility, to see that the property is not taken. Mr. Klein: The property is put out on the sidewalk? Mr. Bowden: A public space. Mr. Klein: So they’d post someone there? Mr. Bowden: No. There lies the problem. Neighbors stealing from neighbors. Sometimes you try, if the tenant is not present, you try to find someone who might know how to notify the tenant of what’s going on. You have a lot of confrontations there where tenants would come in and accuse the Marshal of putting the stuff on the street. We’d have to explain to them that this is a court order. It’s between them, the plaintiff and the defendant, we are just an arm of the court. It’s a court order. It’s not my desire to put you in the streets. You’re on the street because of failure to pay the rent, not something that I did. So you have to let people vent. And the nearest person there is you, the Marshal. And there have been some confrontations. Then you have folk who want to go into the property. After you’ve completed the eviction, you can’t let them. Mr. Klein: So once the eviction was done, the landlord would change the locks, or you’d stay there until the locks were changed? Mr. Bowden: That’s right. They don’t have a right to go back on the property. 53 Mr. Klein: It’s been exactly one hour. I think I may have about ten minutes more recording time. We can start in on how the courthouse worked if you want, or we can do that all as one big chunk. Mr. Bowden: Okay.