When you make a public records request for police records (and access to them), two really helpful pieces of information to know is the location of the event or crime and them date/time of the event.

This week I explain how you need to approach those two elements because police records don’t always get those variables right!

Location

When searching for a crime report, accident report or any police records you need to understand the address information you have may be different than the information the police has.

It’s common to be able to search through these records by address, but sometimes the address known by the police is different than the one you might think of.

For example, you may be looking for any police runs to Governor’s Park, but the police report may have listed the location as it’s actual address of 700 N Blair Stone Road. Or via versa! So searching by “Governor’s Park” may give you 2 out of 5 police runs there in August, but searching by “700 N Blair Stone Road” may give you all 5 runs.

And don’t miss that rather than “700 N Blair Stone Road”, they may only be listed when you search by “700 North Blair Stone Road” (with “North” spelled out).

Also, there are plenty of just… well… mistakes. The officer may have simply mistyped the address as “70 N Blair Stone Road” or “700 Blair Stone Road”.

Finally, there are genuine attempts to obfuscate the location of a crime. I believe these happen very rarely, but I’ve seen it.

This is when an officer might list the intersection where a crime occurred rather than the exact address.

Time

Don’t get too hung-up on exact times.

You’re client may credibly say she saw the crime occur at exactly 9:29pm, but the records of the crime can be filed under significantly different times.

For example…

Crime Occurs: 9:29pm
The police are called: 9:30pm
The police are dispatched: 9:50pm
The police arrive: 10:00pm
The police make an arrest: 10:40pm
The police book the suspect into jail: 1:15am the next day!

So understand that you need to search kinda’ broadly at first to find what you’re looking for.

UPDATE:
My Public Records Mini-Course is now open to the public! It’s no longer restricted to Private Investigators! Check it out!

I hope that’s helpful!

Committed to your success,
Larry Kaye,
Private Investigator &
#1 Best Selling Author

P.S. – Want more solid info like this? Then don’t miss my special report titled… If You Want To be a Private Investigator Give Up… Unless You Do These Three Things. You can get it right here…