PROCESS SERVERS ARE TRAGETS OF CRIME

 If you live in a major metropolitan City you may not think twice about the number of crimes that occur every day in your city, most people don’t, people seem to be only concerned about the crimes that occur in their neighborhood. Most of us have a routine that we stick to that does not take us far from home. We often engage with the people in our community and know the majority of our neighbors. As for me, frequent the same stores, and patronize the same vendors for years. 

When it comes to the service of process, I never know whom I will visit, which has a certain mystery and keeps the job interesting. However, most of the people I visit are regular folks and have concerns about my abrupt but temporary reason for disturbing their peace.

The majority of the documents I serve are lawsuits for an unpaid debut. There are those occasional divorce papers and restraining orders which come with some level of risk but are never without a feeling of compassion from me when executing service. Danger always arises when it involves racism from white and black defendants alike. There is always a redneck somewhere with an over-barring approach of white privilege that says “Nigger” get off my proper, while you’re already leaving, just to be able to steer his anger in your direction, even though you are there serving him with foreclosure right of redemption notice, ironic! I also remember serving a disbarred black female former attorney who sent her dog out to attack me. That didn’t end well. The dog never got a chance to bite me because I maced her mutt and offered some to her as well. 

I reported the attack to the county police and filed a report that the defendant possessed a dog that was off-leash that had the propensity for attacking anyone that would come near the home or walk passed the house. There were no signs stating that I should be aware of anything, nor were there any No Trespassing posted on the small property. The county quarantined the dog for while and later returned the dog to its owner. I learned to whistle a tone when approaching houses in the future. 

Crimes against Process Servers do occur and can be deadly. I had a friend who was shot at several times by a white male who was using a large caliber weapon. He took cover behind his vehicle as was not armed.

My friend was a former law enforcement officer, such as myself, that used his training to alert the authorities and protect himself too. After hearing about the attack, I was hoping the State’s Attorney would prosecute the offense as a hate crime. This would give credence to the Process Server Industry to be able to summons the State to pass special laws for the protection of process servers. Nonetheless, crimes against process servers can occur s often as any other crime.