CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — It's time to cough up the money.
"Look at all the warrants that we have and decide what area of town we wanna go to, go house to house, hope they answer the door," Deputy Marshal Cody Scott said.
Residents of Corpus Christi had one week to pay off any outstanding citations or clear warrants. That amnesty period has ended. On Saturday, Deputy Scott and his colleague started to search for people who did not clear their name.
The marshals go door-to-door and Scott said usually people are forthcoming and willing to pay their fees right then and there. However, if he or she cannot pay, they're taken to the Central Detention Center where they appear before a judge to find a way to rid the warrant. He added they search for people with minor offenses.
"Speeding, no license, theft under one hundred dollars," he said.
Deputy Scott said sometimes people don't answer the door or, they do not report a change of address.
"That person will just wanna keep using that address because they know that we'll go out there but we have other ways of finding them."
Scott added homeless people tend to have the most warrants and finding them isn't always easy. He said they arrested someone with 50 outstanding warrants.
"Sometimes it's just a big circle, so they don't wanna pay after they get out of jail so then they just get their warrants back again," he said.
Deputy Scott explained the best way to avoid a knock on the door from city marshals is to pay any citation before it's too late.
"We can work something out with you, a judge can work something out with you, if you have stuff going on in your life to where you can't pay it off completely all at once."