Editor’s note: What Mom, Dad and the Academy Didn’t Teach You is a nine-part career survival series from Gordon Graham and Bruce “Coach Sok” Sokolove, two self-described “geezer cops” with more than seven decades of law enforcement experience between them. Drawing on what they’ve learned as officers, supervisors, trainers and observers of the profession, the series explores the everyday decisions that can protect — or quietly derail — a law enforcement career. Each installment tackles one lesson they believe officers should learn early, rather than the hard way.
Between the two of us, we have more than seven decades in this profession. We have been officers, supervisors, trainers and, in the later chapters of our careers, observers — watching good cops make entirely avoidable mistakes.
Not bad cops. Good ones.
The academy teaches you to do the job. Arrest techniques, firearms qualification, criminal law and first aid. What it does not teach — and what nobody seems to teach, at least not plainly and early enough — is the ecology of a law enforcement career: the legal, professional, social and personal environment in which that career will either survive or get quietly dismantled.
This series shares nine practical lessons that too many officers learn the hard way. In this installment, we look at how to write reports that can withstand scrutiny long after the incident is over.
Lesson 4: Write every report for a federal courtroom five years from now
Because it might end up there. This is not hyperbole. Reports that seemed routine at the time have become central exhibits in excessive force litigation, wrongful conviction appeals and federal civil rights investigations. The officer who wrote them is rarely in a position to explain away ambiguity — the document speaks for itself.
The most important craft distinction in report writing is between observations and conclusions. An observation is what your senses told you: “The subject’s eyes were glassy, his speech was slurred, and there was an odor of alcohol on his breath.” A conclusion is an interpretive leap: “He was drunk.”
Defense attorneys live in the gap between those two, so it’s important to build good report-writing habits now. Document what you saw, heard and smelled — in detail — before you tell the reader what you concluded from it.
Two practices that seem minor and are in fact career-threatening: “rounding up” statistical reports, and altering a submitted report without a proper supplement. The first is a form of dishonesty that can become a Brady issue. The second is a crime. The only acceptable correction to a submitted report is a clearly labeled supplemental report. “I didn’t think it was a big deal” is not a defense.
Previous lessons
- Lesson 1: Your digital footprint can be a professional liability
- Lesson 2: Your free speech rights narrowed the day you were hired
- Lesson 3: Integrity is infrastructure, not aspiration
Continue learning on Police1
- 5 essential police report writing tips to improve clarity and detail
- How to write organized and concise police reports
- 7 deadly sins of police report writing — and how to avoid them
- Why every police report needs a synopsis
| WATCH: From field notes to final draft: Why officers must double-check their reports
| Want more career lessons from Gordon and Bruce? Watch their on-demand webinar: 9 Career-Saving Lessons for Cops
