The first time you sit in the lead chair on a major case, the kind that draws attention, pressure and expectations, you feel it. The weight. The responsibility. The silence in the room when everyone turns to you and waits. And in that moment, nobody cares how many classes you’ve taken, how many years you spent on patrol or what rank you made. All that matters is whether you can work the case and do it the right way. You won’t get a second chance to document it cleanly, so how you start matters as much as how it ends.
Looking back, there’s a list of things I wish I’d known early in my investigative career. Not because I was reckless, but because I didn’t yet understand how long this job echoes. You don’t realize in your first year that your name, your documentation and your habits will follow you long after your cases are closed.
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These aren’t theories. These are things I learned through real work, real failure and real conversations with prosecutors, families and peers. If you’re new to the role or mentoring someone who is, here’s what I’d tell you.
1. Your reports are your reputation
What you write will outlast you. It doesn’t matter how well you cleared a case if the documentation is sloppy, vague or inconsistent. Long after you’ve moved on, those reports can become critical again. Years after I left narcotics, one of my old reports helped our drug task force open a regional network. It worked because the facts were solid, the timeline was clean and the work could be trusted.
No one will ever complain that your report was too thorough, but they will absolutely hold it against you if it wasn’t. Read your own reports like you’re the one prosecuting the case. If something’s unclear, fix it before it ever gets filed.
2. Don’t fall in love with your theory
You’re not here to prove a hunch, you’re here to find the truth. And sometimes, your theory will be wrong. When that happens, you’ve got two options: ignore what doesn’t fit or reset and refocus.
Some of the best arrests I ever made came after I let go of what I thought was true and started following the evidence where it actually pointed. You’re not a prosecutor and you’re not a defense attorney. You’re an independent fact finder. Stay open-minded or you’ll miss what’s right in front of you.
3. Cases are won in documentation, not the interview room
Will you get confessions? Sometimes. Should you rely on them? Absolutely not.
A confession without corroboration is fragile. But a well-documented case built on timelines, surveillance, physical and digital evidence is durable. If your whole case depends on what a suspect says, you’re gambling. Build your case like they’ll never speak a word, and when they do, it’s just a bonus.
4. You don’t have to be first, you have to be right
There’s always going to be pressure to move fast. High-profile cases draw media, command staff and political attention. But there’s no trophy for being first to file. And if you rush the work, you’ll be answering for it years later when it falls apart.
There’s urgency, sure, but don’t confuse that with speed. We say in tactics, “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” The same applies to casework. Do it right the first time.
5. The DA is seeking justice — help them do it
Your job isn’t to build a perfect case, but an honest one, and deliver it in a way that the prosecutor can use. You’re the expert in finding facts. They’re the expert in presenting those facts in court.
If the elements of the crime have been met, it’s your responsibility to ensure your case file is complete, clear and trial-ready without shaping or bending anything to fit.
Your case files should follow a consistent structure. Your reports should anticipate the questions they’ll be asked. If you make their job easier, they’ll move your cases forward with more confidence and you’ll avoid unnecessary setbacks.
6. Digital evidence is not optional
Too many investigators still treat digital work like it’s someone else’s job. It’s not. You don’t have to be a forensic analyst, but you do need to understand how to secure, interpret and use digital records.
That includes metadata, social media, pattern analysis, cloud storage and even knowing what apps people are using. Struggling with it at first is normal, but it’s a skill like anything else. Invest the time or you’ll keep missing the pieces that make your case whole.
Always follow your agency’s digital evidence procedures and applicable state laws when collecting or preserving this data. Make sure your documentation is thorough and your chain of custody is clean, because if your evidence can’t survive the courtroom, it shouldn’t be in your file.
7. The victim’s family will remember how you treated them
When my grandfather passed away, his home was burglarized. They took his badge, my grandmother’s badge and his personal firearm. We had cameras inside and a short list of people who could’ve done it.
The officers on scene were great. But the assigned detective? One phone call in two months. When we finally met, he admitted he hadn’t done basic follow-up. Said he’d tried some of the tools we suggested once and gave up when they didn’t work. I offered him a search warrant template. He said thanks — and disappeared. No callback. No resolution. He later tried to close the case without even notifying us. We had to go through his supervisor to keep it open.
Did we expect to recover the items? Not really. But that’s not the point. What stays with families is whether you cared, whether you called and whether you made them feel like their case mattered.
They won’t remember your rank. They’ll remember your name — and whether they ever heard it again. It doesn’t take special resources to return a phone call. Professional follow-up matters just as much as investigative skill.
8. Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s smart
You don’t get extra credit for pushing boundaries. If you have to stretch a tactic to make your case work, then your case probably isn’t ready. You have to protect your credibility because you only get one.
The badge on your chest tells the world who hired you. Your name tag tells them who raised you. No one’s going to remember that one person you arrested, but they’ll remember how you worked the case and whether your name could be trusted when it mattered.
9. Ask the dumb question early
You’re not supposed to know everything on day one. What gets you in trouble isn’t ignorance, it’s pretending. Ask the question. Ask it twice. Ask two different people and see what they both say.
Some of the best techniques I ever learned came from conversations that started with, “Can I ask you something stupid?” Veteran detectives respect that because they remember doing the same thing themselves.
10. You are not the story
It’s not your moment. It’s not your headline. Your job is to find the truth and tell it cleanly. You’re the historian — not the hero.
The people you’re helping don’t need a performance, they need professionalism. And when the cameras are off and the court transcripts are filed, what’ll matter most is whether your work held up, whether the process was fair and whether you left the case better than you found it.
This work is hard. It’s supposed to be. Even when no one is watching, how you carry out the work is what builds long-term credibility. But if you carry yourself with discipline, consistency and integrity — day after day, case after case — your name will stand on its own. Not because you were the loudest, but because you were the one people could count on to do the job the right way every time.
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