MPOETC Incident Investigation & Reporting 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A robbery victim describes the suspect as a 'tall Black male in a red hoodie.' The officer should document this description as:
- Omit race to avoid potential bias claims
- Record the victim's description exactly as given, including all physical descriptors provided (Correct answer)
- Change 'Black male' to 'dark-complexioned individual' to soften the language
- Only note clothing since physical descriptors are not legally usable
Correct answer: Record the victim's description exactly as given, including all physical descriptors provided
Suspect descriptions must be recorded exactly as provided by the witness, including all physical descriptors, to preserve the accuracy needed to identify and locate the suspect.
Question 2: When an officer submits evidence to the property room, which information is LEAST important to include on the evidence tag?
- Case number and date collected
- Collecting officer's name and badge number
- The officer's home address (Correct answer)
- Description of the item
Correct answer: The officer's home address
An officer's home address has no relevance to evidence documentation; the case number, date, collecting officer's ID, and item description are the required elements.
Question 3: In Pennsylvania, a juvenile who is taken into custody for a delinquent act must be:
- Booked and fingerprinted identically to an adult
- Processed according to the Juvenile Act, with parental notification and referral to juvenile probation as required (Correct answer)
- Held in the adult detention facility if the crime is serious
- Released immediately without documentation
Correct answer: Processed according to the Juvenile Act, with parental notification and referral to juvenile probation as required
Pennsylvania's Juvenile Act requires specific procedures for juvenile custody, including parental notification and referral to juvenile probation rather than adult criminal booking.
Question 4: An officer completes an incident report but realizes the next day that key information was omitted. The correct action is to:
- Alter the original report to add the missing information
- Submit a supplemental report documenting the additional information (Correct answer)
- Do nothing, since the report has already been submitted
- Destroy the original and write an entirely new report
Correct answer: Submit a supplemental report documenting the additional information
Supplemental reports are the correct mechanism for adding information to a previously submitted report, maintaining the integrity of both the original and the addition.
Question 5: An officer is preparing a court affidavit of probable cause for an arrest warrant. The standard required is:
- Beyond a reasonable doubt
- A preponderance of the evidence
- Probable cause — a reasonable belief based on facts that a crime was committed by the suspect (Correct answer)
- Mere suspicion or a gut feeling
Correct answer: Probable cause — a reasonable belief based on facts that a crime was committed by the suspect
Arrest warrants require probable cause, meaning articulable facts giving a reasonable person grounds to believe the suspect committed the crime.
Question 6: During a neighborhood canvass following a shooting, a resident reports hearing gunshots but saw nothing. The officer should:
- Dismiss the resident since no visual information was provided
- Document the resident as a witness, record what was heard and when, and obtain contact information (Correct answer)
- Only record information from witnesses who saw the shooting
- Ask the resident to write their own report and submit it later
Correct answer: Document the resident as a witness, record what was heard and when, and obtain contact information
Auditory witnesses can provide crucial timeline and direction-of-shots information; all witness contact with relevant information must be documented.
Question 7: A report contains the phrase 'the suspect looked guilty and was obviously hiding something.' This language is problematic because:
- It is too detailed for a standard report
- It is subjective opinion, not objective fact, and is inappropriate in a police report (Correct answer)
- It does not identify the suspect by name
- It uses informal language that should be replaced with legal terminology
Correct answer: It is subjective opinion, not objective fact, and is inappropriate in a police report
Police reports must contain objective observations; phrases like 'looked guilty' are opinions that are legally indefensible and can undermine the credibility of the entire report.
MPOETC Incident Investigation & Reporting 5
A robbery victim describes the suspect as a 'tall Black male in a red hoodie.' The officer should document this description as: