Police Reports

[Old Trooper]

Way back in the day, when we used typewriters for reports, I was a sergeant, and had to review and correct reports, it would drive me nuts sometimes!! The first time I checked a report, I would list the spelling, grammar, punctuation errors on a note, attach it to the report, and send it back to the trooper. He could correct the original with whiteout or whatever....when I got the report the second time and found screwups, I got out my trusty red pen and made notes on the report itself. That meant typing the whole thing over! It got the message across, and after a while, guys would take a few extra minutes to look a report over before turning it in. As a new sergeant, I always used the "attached note" method, but then, I realized that guys would wait until I was working to turn in their reports, instead of turning them in to other sergeants. That's when I finally smartened up and got a red pen!

[SeVere]

One of the hardest things to get new people to do sometimes is to "dumb down" their reports to a Reader's Digest vocabulary. They seem to want to impress people with how smart they are even if they can't spell the damn words...

The only people who dictate in my dept are detectives and officers assigned to Drugs and Vice. But we still have to put in our own punctuation as we dictate. The typists shouldn't be responsible to do that. Besides, they can type a lot faster if they don't have to stop and try to figure out our sentence structure.

We type our own and Oh Yes, they must be typed.

[oscarmitre]

Probably for the same reason we "exit our vehicles".

As Judge Mills Lane once said, "Nobody 'exits vehicles' except police officers. Normal people just get out of their cars!" :p

LOL - I do remember though as a very young and eager copper on a foot patrol in the city centre once being told (this was before we had handheld radios) that there was a big disturbance at a nightclub on our beat. I started to hurry but my sage partner told me "son, coppers never run, we 'proceed'" :D

[corporal716]

I can only imagine what the insurance adjuster in the mid-west thinks when he reads "...states his bling-bling was snatched..." instead of "...yellow metal necklace stated to be 14K gold, large in size with a 14K gold crown pendant with approximately 2 carats of diamond chips was forcibly taken from his neck..."

OMG..... Did someone really write bling-bling in a report??

[SeVere]

or "Baby's Daddy" written in the report. It drives me crazy.

[Star]

We have report takers here but I read it again and again, think about it and read it again. If I don't like the way something was said, I will do it over myself which is normally what happens. I can't stand it when a person goes on and on in a report. State the facts. Don't accuse or make personal observations. For God sakes, who, what, when, why, how! I live in a somewhat lower Alabama town. Grammar is number one on the list.

[lindat2957]

OMG..... Did someone really write bling-bling in a report??

I had a cadert do that, when I kicked it back they argued that it was in the dictionary. No bling-bling does not belong in a report. Of course being slightly, and I put the emphasis on slightly, I thought it meant something else. It read something like this: The Victim thought the suspect was after her bling-bling.

[lindat2957]

ooopps left out the word older after slightly....wasn't intentional, honest!

[corporal716]

or "Baby's Daddy" written in the report. It drives me crazy.

I liked to use a lot of quotes in my reports. It really hits it home when you can quote stupid people.

[SeVere]

I liked to use a lot of quotes in my reports. It really hits it home when you can quote stupid people.

But using things like "Baby's Dadddy" "Finna" "Joe" "know what I'm sayin" "the crib" "carilla" "woo woo woo" make you look bad in court when everyone Knows what that person was talking about and they think you are attacking the victim of a crime and it hurts your credibility.

When someone tells me "my baby's daddy came to the crib and we got into it woo woo woo and what not and joe jumped on me bustin up mah lip we finna break-up.

I don't write that. I write they indicated that their child's father came over to their house. A verbal altercation ensued (I have them tell me what woo woo woo is, I also don't accept yada yada yada). The offender John SMITH slapped the victim in the face causing a swollin lip.

People speak to us colloquially on a daily basis and we, as professionals, are supposed to be able to make heads or tales about it and report the meaning of what they are saying to the best of our ability.

Quotes are a good thing at times, but to me writing baby's daddy and woo woo woo is just a cheap shot at the victim that ultimately hurts our own credibility later down the road.

[corporal716]

When someone tells me "my baby's daddy came to the crib and we got into it woo woo woo and what not and joe jumped on me bustin up mah lip we finna break-up.

LOL

I didn't mean it that literally