Spelling and Punctuation for Police Reports Flashcards

Which of the following is the correctly spelled word for a legal order requiring a person to appear in court?

Answer: Subpoena

'Subpoena' is the correct spelling. This Latin-derived legal term is routinely used in police reports and court documents. All other options contain misspellings that would be flagged as errors in official reports.

Which of the following words is spelled correctly as it would appear in a police surveillance report?

Answer: Surveillance

'Surveillance' is correct. It derives from the French 'surveiller' (to watch over). It contains 'veill' in the middle and ends in '-ance,' not '-ence.' This word appears frequently in investigative and undercover documentation.

Which sentence is correctly punctuated?

Answer: Officer Martinez, who arrived on scene first, wrote the initial report.

Non-restrictive relative clauses — clauses that add extra information but are not essential to identify the subject — must be enclosed in commas on both sides. 'Who arrived on scene first' is non-restrictive (Officer Martinez is already named), so it requires a comma before and after.

Which sentence uses an apostrophe correctly in a police report context?

Answer: The witnesses' statements were recorded at the scene.

When a plural noun already ending in 's' is made possessive, only an apostrophe is added after the final 's' — no additional 's.' 'Witnesses'' is correct because 'witnesses' is plural. 'Witnesses's' and 'witness'es' are not standard English forms.

Which of the following is spelled correctly in the context of a criminal case?

Answer: Perpetrator

'Perpetrator' is the correct spelling, referring to the person who committed a criminal act. The suffix is '-ator,' derived from Latin, matching the same ending found in 'investigator' and 'administrator.' All other options contain misspellings.

Which of the following sentences contains a punctuation error?

Answer: The victim identified the suspect from a photo lineup, and signed a written statement.

Option D contains an error: a comma before 'and' is incorrect when connecting only two verb phrases in a single independent clause ('identified' and 'signed'). The Oxford comma rule applies to lists of three or more items, not to two-part compound predicates with the same subject.