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Dealing with the Police
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Misunderstanding & Misbehavior
An unfortunate incident occurred last Thursday that brought home to me how fragile and how potentially rife with conflict is our relationship with our District 8 Police.
Without going into exquisite detail of the event, a misunderstanding occurred when a young neighbor of mine after enduring weeks of harassment and threats called the police to report the incident and obtain an incident report as I suggested would be the prudent course of action to document the call for service to the police and the incidents of threats and harassment.
She had to call several times because a police car did at first respond but told her he did not have time to take the report and drove off. After further calls, including one to the Desk Sergeant the Officer returned and had quite an attitude with her, seeming angry that he had been ordered back. She documented some of the things he said to her in a report. It seemed uncharacteristic of the District 8 officers we have now but eerily familiar with police behavior before Col. Esserman became Chief. Let’s just call this behavior intimidating, bullying, and unprofessional.
The event seemed to center around my neighbor asking for an Incident Report Number, which she claims the Officer tried several times to avoid giving.
The second part of this will discuss Incident Reports and Incident Report Numbers.
Incident Reports: How to get one.
When a police officer responds to your call and is in your presence if you are reporting an incident of any kind, including:
threats, vandalism, drug dealing, theft, blocking a public way, illegally parked cars blocking streets, sidewalks, trespassing etc. etc
you have the right to ask for an Incident Report Number, not an Incident Report.
To generate an Incident Report, the officer calls down to dispatch and they give him an incident report number, which he in turn should give to you. When the officer has the opportunity to write the report during his shift he writes it and turns it in. It will be available for you to pick up at the police station from the records department within a few days usually not less than a week. To get the written report you provide the Records Department with the Incident Report Number.
Do you now understand the importance of asking police who respond in person to your calls for an Incident Report Number. If you want documentation of what happened and that the police responded you must get it down in an Incident Report.
Documentation is the only way to establish the frequency and the pattern of incidents and the police response.
As far as the police are concerned, if it’s not in a report accessible to the public, it never happened. No incident report number -- no incident.
Why Do The Police Resist giving Incident Report Numbers?
I’ve experienced it and many other people have experienced it also, a Providence Police Officer refusing to provide an Incident Report Number when requested to do so and answering your call.
I can think of only several reasons why an officer would not respond to a legitimate request for an Incident Report Number:
1)
It’s a lot of work to write and submit a report and many officers do not like to do paperwork.
2)
Incident reports are included in police statistics and fewer incident reports of criminal behavior or disturbances result in more favorable statistics for the police department to report.
How to handle asking for an Incident Report.
I believe the police are obligated to provide citizens with Incident Report Numbers when answering their call.
I’ve trained myself to handle it this way: when the officer responds, first make note of his badge number, that way if you need to discuss this incident with anyone else you can identify the officer by badge number. It is not necessary to make a show of this. You should have a pen and paper on which to write down the requested Incident Report and you can note his badge number on this paper.
If the officer refuses to provide the incident report number, ask him why and make note of that reason. Now that you know his badge number and can identify him you can address his behavior with his superior officers. I would first approach the District 8 Commander, and see if he would follow up and get you the incident report number you requested. If that fails, follow your request up the chain of command by using the city’s web page.
You must be relentless in demanding service and accountability or you will get none.
John Twomey
Posted at August 28, 2007 11:48 AM