More on the importance of Report Writing

The June, 2011 issue of The Thin Blue Line, the publication of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, contains a nice article by Detective Tyler Inzen. Detective Inzen emphasizes that "You can only control what you can control." How true. One can't fix all the wrongs of society, or stop all the crime in one's community. But as a police officer, you can control what you put down in writing. And as Gary Ingemunson has pointed out in The Thin Blue Line, short of testifying in court, writing a report may be the most important thing an officer does. As I have emphasized in prior posts, be scrupulously accurate and honest in all of your reports. Thoroughness must preempt brevity.