Synopsis of
The New Police Report Manual Devallis Rutledge

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

A Field Training Officer (FTO), Rutledge (Author), is on patrol with a patrol officer. He has to type his first police report and is not doing a good job. His officer was disappointed at what he had read in his report; he’s going to show the rookie how it’s done. The officer’s report was not only 50% longer, but full of jargon. The rookie cop stated, “Why do we write like that?” “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it,” replied the officer. After years of being a cop and writing real police reports, Rutledge became a prosecutor. After numerous trails, Rutledge was still boggled at the way police reports were written. So he decided to ask …show more content…
While using what Rutledge calls “gobbledygook, like inaugurated instead of began and at which point and time instead of then” you will confuse your reader with words that are not common language. Refrain from using unrecognizable words and lengthy phrases. You would not go around talking like an attorney; then, do not write like them either in your police reports. When using words that you wouldn’t commonly use in your everyday vocabulary, you may place a word that sounds the same, but doesn’t have the same meaning. Rutledge states, “Gobbledygook is just a contrived language that different groups of officials have made up to make themselves sound more educated and professional than the rest of us.”

SAY WHAT YOU MEAN

We all have taken writing classes either in high school or as prerequisites for a degree and learned all the rules to write correctly, but do we really remember all of those rules. When proof reading your police reports, say what you mean; if your sentence has two different meanings and seems confusing to you it probably is, try moving words around and/or break-up the sentence into two different sentences. Rutledge gave a great example; “He was 5’6”, 175 lbs., long dark hair, and wearing a heavy green overcoat with sideburns.” Who or what had the sideburns the overcoat or the suspect? Have you ever sat and listened to someone going on and on forever;