Scott Greene is the accused killer of two Iowa police officers who were murdered in Iowa on November 2.
You can read a series of incident reports about Greene’s encounters with police before the fatal shootings by clicking here.
These reports are worth reading and thinking about. Incident reports tend to be overlooked when criminal justice experts are talking about police recordkeeping. Here’s why: incident reports document situations when no laws were broken and no arrests were made. Often they’re placed in a file and forgotten.
But the Scott Greene case reminds us that incident reports can provide an important paper trail later on, when a series of minor events becomes connected to a major new story – especially a sad one, like the deaths of the two Iowa police officers.
I encourage you to click on the link and spend a few minutes reading the Scott Greene incident reports, especially if you’re new to police writing. I found them to be well written and professional.
I have a few suggestions, however. The writers tend to overuse “advise,” which should be saved for giving actual advice. Use “said” or “told”:
At this time Steven advised me that Scott has mental issues. X
Steven told me that Scott has mental issues. √
Another issue is that these incident reports are sometimes more wordy than they need to be. Busy police officers sometimes need to be reminded to write efficiently. Expressions like “upon my arrival” and “at this time” don’t add any useful information and should be avoided.
Here’s an example of a sentence that could be simplified:
When running Scott’s information through dispatch I was advised of an Officer Safety flag as Scott has hatred for all law enforcement. WORDY
Here’s a more efficient version:
Dispatch told me about an Officer Safety flag noting that Scott hated all law enforcement. EFFICIENT
