Are personal statements and feelings of the suspect while in the police car ride to bookings included in a police report ?
What exactly is included in a police report?
r/AskLE
Are personal statements and feelings of the suspect while in the police car ride to bookings included in a police report ?
Comments
Generally, only if they’re relevant to the case or help prove guilt.
Personal statement that can be incriminating? Yes
Feelings ? As in fear for your life ? Based on the element of the crime. Yes
Feeling weird about someone as in bad vibes ? No
If there are excited utterances in there I’d add them to the report. That ride is almost always audio and video recorded these days and that would be discoverable in other ways.
Suspect- “Yeah I smoked that fool in the back of the head.” Included.
Suspect- “I’m sad and want my mommy.” Not included.
Anything relevant should be in the report, which can include statements the suspect makes on the way to jail. If we have a discussion about my selection of music for the ride then no, that’s not relevant and doesn’t go in my report.
Everything that’s pertinent to the case.
Basically, we write a detailed version of the who, what, when, where, why, and how. We include any statements made by victims, witnesses and suspects. We also include any observations we make of evidence, video, etc. And to answer your specific question, yes if the suspect makes any statements during transport or booking that are relevant to the case, we will put those in the report typically.
The 5Ws — who, what, where, when, why/how, in a (hopefully short) narrative of what happened, in the third person (usually).
Personal statements: think of the Mirandas. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in court.” If what they’re saying is relevant to what’s going on (“Of fuckin’ course I was drinking officer! You want to hit this sweet Busch Lite action too, son?!” during a DWI), then it goes in.
If, for some reason, they cop to something else they’ve done — that goes in.
If they ask you to stop by In-N-Out, then no, you don’t include “Suspect requested the officer stop by the In-N-Out en route to station. Request was denied.”
Feelings get fiddly. The report should be as objective as possible (specific, observable things that happened, when they happened, where they happened). Feelings start getting subjective. Sometimes it’s relevant — “Mrs. X was visibly distraught upon learning of son’s assault,” but that gets more into detective-level stuff. If someone doesn’t react in a way that makes sense (like, if somebody’s not acting surprised that their husband, who they knew was cheating, was murdered) — that’s worth noting in a report. Some places allow/sometimes encourage noting things like demeanor and behavior — but it’s not universal, because it’s hard to standardize. Even if there are times it is fairly pertinent.
If they decide to drop a dime on somebody while you’re taking them on a cute date through the In-N-Out drive-thru — that’ll mostly go in your own notes, and not in that specific report.