LOS ANGELES COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE

ONEMINUTE BRIEF

JACKIE LACEY
DISTRICT ATTORNEY
EXTRA
COPYRIGHT © 2020 LOS ANGELES COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. MAY BE REPRODUCED
FOR NON-COMMERCIAL PROSECUTORIAL, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. [email protected]

NUMBER: 2020-X1 DATE: 06-08-20 BY: Devallis Rutledge TOPIC: Police Report Writing Tips

By popular request:

REPORT WRITING TIPS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

(1) The basic purpose of any writing—including police reports—is to communicate

information. Bearing that purpose in mind, officers should continually ask themselves
whether the language and writing style they're using is best suited to accomplishing the
basic purpose of the report.

(2) Investigative reports have many uses. They document events and memorialize
statements. The information contained in (or missing from) reports may have significance
for filing criminal charges, providing the basis for criminal defenses and motions,
resolving internal affairs investigations, providing the basis for defense of civil liability
cases, complying with disclosure requirements, refreshing witnesses' recollections
at trial, assisting with insurance claims, affecting personnel evaluations and career
advancement, and compiling statistical data that may influence allocation of resources
and deployment of assets.
Given these important functions of police reports, it is important that every report
be complete, accurate, unambiguous and understandable.
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MAKING IT COMPLETE

(3) The content of crime and arrest reports and supplementals will, of course, depend
on the nature of the crime and the events, as well as the amount of information known.
Most reports will contain information about some or all of several topics, including the
crimes, casualties and loss, victims and witnesses, suspects, locations, vehicles,
weapons, evidence, statements, actions taken and case status. Officers should detail the
following, as appropriate and available.

(4) Crime elements. To establish that a crime occurred, there must be direct or
circumstantial evidence of each element of the crime. Consider all offenses that the
evidence supports, and be sure that your report covers every one of them, including
date, time and place of occurrence, if known.

(5) Casualties, loss and damage. Property crimes and crimes against the person will
usually involve death or injury, or loss or damage to property. These facts may not be
elements of the crime (examples: assault requires no proof of injury; burglary requires no
proof of loss); however, whether or not they are elements of a particular crime, injuries
and damage (or their lack) are important topics to include.

(6) Victims and witnesses. Anyone who has anything to do with the crime—including
people who were present and claim not to have seen or heard anything—should be
identified to the extent possible (such as full names, all addresses, all phone numbers,
DOB, CDL).

(7) Suspects. If suspects are arrested or otherwise identified, their full description
should be given, such as full names, all addresses, employer or school, all phone
numbers, DOB, CDL, sex, race, height, weight, hair color, eye color, gang affiliation
claimed or known, clothing worn, physical abnormalities, facial characteristics
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(mustache/beard/piercing), scars/tattoos, weapons used or carried, vehicles used and

custodial status. Unidentified suspects should be described to the extent possible.

(8) Locations. Addresses of crimes and significant events should be given in

maximum detail, including street address, unit number, building floor, and city and
county. In homicides, officer-involved shootings and other major crimes where it is
predictable that courtroom testimony will focus on relative locations, distances, lighting
conditions, visibility, obstructions, etc., these should be documented with aerial or surface
photographs or video, or in diagrams with measured distances recorded.

(9) Vehicles. Descriptions should include make, model, year, color, damage or
modifications and license plate, state and number. Reports should connect each listed
vehicle with the respective suspect, victim or event.

(10) Weapons. As known for firearms, include kind, color, manufacturer, serial number,
location, use in the crime, live and expended rounds loaded/chambered/recovered,
safety status when recovered and available ammunition. Describe other kinds of
weapons and their status as fully as possible.

(11) Evidence. Tell readers what the evidence is, where it was located and by whom,
who collected it, identifying markings placed on it, apparent condition, how it was
preserved, submission to and results of forensic testing, and current location.

(12) Statements. Where possible, tape record statements of suspects, victims, crucial
witnesses and those who may die, disappear or change their minds before trial. When
reporting oral statements, use the victim's and suspect's words verbatim, in quotation
marks, wherever possible. The statements of favorable witnesses may be summarized;
the statements of adverse witnesses should be quoted verbatim. Statements of legal
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effect (such as denials and confessions, consent to search and waiver of rights)
should be quoted verbatim, if they cannot be recorded.

(13) Actions taken. Whatever official steps you take to deal with a crime should normally
be reported in chronological order, together with the facts in justification (if needed).
This would include facts showing a consensual encounter, your reasonable suspicion for
detentions and weapons frisks, probable cause for arrest, justification for searches,
circumstances of seizures, justification for home entry and safety sweeps, justification for
the use of force, admonition of rights for custodial interrogations, administration of
medical aid, transportation of suspects and others, circumstances of vehicle removals
and impounds, compliance with prisoner laws (phone calls, VCCR notice, PC
declaration), fingerprint and DNA collection, and disposition of property, bodies, patients
and arrestees.

(14) Case status. Initial reports and all supplementals should allow the reader to see
or surmise what the status of the case is, whether under investigation, cleared by arrest,
closed or submitted for charging.

MAKING IT ACCURATE

(15) False attribution. When two or more victims or witnesses make statements, they
have to be kept straight, as to which one said what. Don't inadvertently put the words of
one person into another person's statement. When you ask a witness to describe a
suspect and she says "He was about your height," don't report that the witness "said the
suspect was 5' 11'' tall."

(16) Estimates vs. guesses. An estimate is a person's best opinion about something
noticed that wasn't measured with a measuring device. Witnesses can estimate a
vehicle's speed, the height and weight of a suspect, the distance they were standing from
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the point of impact, etc. They cannot give an estimate of something they didn't see, hear,
smell, taste or feel; speculation about matters that they have no basis for estimating
would be a guess. To ensure that what is put into a police report is a fact or an estimate,
rather than a guess, witnesses need to be asked, "How do you know that?" The basis
for their knowledge or estimates should be included in the report. ("Baker said he saw....")

(17) Brackets. When a witness (or an officer) is giving an estimate, it is safest to

estimate the minimum and maximum, and estimate that the value lay between. For
example, instead of a lay person saying, "I estimate the car was traveling about 42.6
mph," it would be better (more accurate, in most cases) to say, "I estimate the car was
going between 40 and 45 mph." The less certain the witness is, the wider the range
should be ("between 35 and 50," or "between 30 and 55," etc.). The officer can help the
witness narrow or broaden the range until the witness is comfortable with the estimate.
This makes it less likely the witness will be impeached if other evidence shows that s/he
was slightly off on the actual measurement.

(18) Non-factual conclusions. Conclusionary words are never as accurate as simply

stating the facts.

Compare: "He was using profanity and uttering obscenities at me," with "He said,
'Fuck you, asshole. Go fuck yourself'."

Compare: "Contreras accosted Davis and an altercation ensued," with

"Contreras shoved Davis in the chest with both hands, Davis punched Contreras in the
nose, and both men grabbed each other and fell onto the ground."

Compare: "She couldn't recite the alphabet," with "She said 'A, B, C, D, X, Y, Z.
Close enough. Whatever'."
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Compare: "He saw us, reacted suspiciously and made a furtive movement in
the front seat," with "He looked in our direction, our eyes met and he immediately turned
his head away; then he bent down out of sight for approximately 10 seconds in the front
seat."

Compare: "Edwards was being antagonistic, uncooperative, belligerent and

threatening in the extreme," with "Edwards pulled loose from my grasp and turned away,
putting his hands into his pockets, and shouting 'Stay the hell off my street, or me and
my boys will take care of you and your fucking family, shithead!' "

Compare: "He denied any involvement in the robbery, but he admitted that he
was acquainted with one of the perpetrators," with "He said, 'I wasn't with them when
they went over to the store, or whatever. I just know Freddy from school, is all'."

Compare: "She indicated that he did match the description," with "She said,
'Number three is the same size and build and got the same color hair and all'."

Compare: "He waived Miranda and admitted possession of the drugs," with
"When I asked, 'Do you want to talk about what happened?' Gomez said, 'I guess so. All
right.' And then he said, 'She ain't had nothing to do with the meth, okay? That shit is just
mine'."

KEEPING IT UNAMBIGUOUS

(19) Careful with pronouns. If a sentence mentions two or more people of the same
sex, it may not be clear to whom a later pronoun refers. For example, "Harrison told Irving
that he had his money and he had to give him a receipt," doesn't make it clear who had
whose money and who had to give whom a receipt. Compare: "Harrison told Irving that
Irving had Harrison's money and Irving had to give him a receipt."
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(20) Passive vs. active voice. Avoid use of the passive voice. Passive voice does
not unambiguously tell how things happened, or who did them. Use active voice only.

Compare: "It was determined that Jordan had an outstanding arrest warrant," with
"I ran Jordan on the MDT and found out that he had an outstanding arrest warrant."

Compare: "A search of the room was conducted and a shotgun was found under
the bed," with "Officer Kearney and I searched the room and she found a shotgun under
the bed."

Compare: "Lincoln was evaluated for drug use and it was ascertained that he
had injected an opiate," with "Detective Mendez evaluated Lincoln for drug use and
located three apparent injection sites on Lincoln's left inner forearm; Lincoln said, 'That
was just a little heroin, but I ain't got no more on me. It's all gone'."

(21) Misplaced modifiers. Read your reports to see if they say what you meant to say.
Sometimes a word that's meant to describe another word is placed too far away, and it
appears to describe or modify a different word in the sentence.

Compare: "Norris beat the child with a black man's leather belt," with "Norris beat
the child with a man's black leather belt."

Compare: "We almost pursued the vehicle for ten miles," with "We pursued the
vehicle for almost ten miles."

Compare: "We nearly maintained surveillance for nine hours," with "We maintained
surveillance for nearly nine hours."
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Compare: "She said the man was carrying a white cat wearing a dark suit," with
"She said the man wore a dark suit and was carrying a white cat."

(22) I, me, my. Do not refer to yourself in the third person. First-person pronouns are
best.

Compare: "Reporting officer had to retrieve this officer's flashlight from

undersigned's car," with "I had to get my flashlight from my car."

MAKING IT UNDERSTANDABLE

(23) Names, not labels. If the report discusses people who have not been identified by
name and there is no better way to refer to them, it is sometimes necessary to continue
to refer to them as "Suspect 1" and "Suspect 2," etc. However, once the suspects have
been named, they and all other named people should be called by name—not by
labels.

Compare: "RP (Noonan) told officers that Suspect # 1 (Oliver) and Suspect # 2
(Perez) hit Victim # 1 (Quinn) and shoved Victim # 2 (Richards) in front of Witness # 1
(Sanchez). Suspect # 1 then punched Victim # 1 (Thomas) in the nose," with "Noonan
told us that Oliver and Perez hit Quinn and shoved Richards in front of Sanchez. Oliver
then punched Thomas in the nose."

Once the race of unnamed individuals has been stated, it is not necessary to
continue to refer to them by their race: instead of "the two male Hispanics," say "the two
men" or "the suspects," etc.

(24) Eliminate clutter. There is no good reason to clutter reports with artificial
terminology: "young female juvenile subject" is policese for “girl." “I began to verbalize
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with the subject” is gobbledygook for “I talked to him.” (And unless you’re a monarch, you
probably don’t have any “subjects.”)

Jurors (and everyone else who has to assess your credibility) do not like, do not
trust, and do not understand, policese/gobbledygook. Do not use it—not in reports, and
not in testimony.

To avoid policese/gobbledygook, simply use plain English, instead.

Compare:
responded……………………………...went
made telephonic contact with……...…phoned
exited my unit……………………….…..got out of my car
activated my overhead lights……….…turned on my overhead lights
maintained visual surveillance………..watched
visually perceived………………………saw
observed……………………….………..saw
detected an odor………………………..smelled
my attention was drawn to…………….I noticed
green in color……………………………green
in reference to…………………………..about
physical altercation……………………..fight
verbal altercation………………………..argument
It should be noted that it was raining….It was raining.

Keep it simple.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
--Leonardo da Vinci