2015 Police Report Writing Workshops

“If it is not in the report, it never happened.” How many times have you heard that? It is even truer now than in the past as criminal and civil courts look to the officer’s report for what happened and may not allow testimony that is not documented in the written report.

Report writing is hard, and it is difficult to capture all of the simultaneous activity of a police call in writing. It can also be challenging to record what occurred in a manner that allows the reader of the report to fully know what happened.

The request to provide training in this area is the most frequent wish we see on our evaluation and feedback forms from our members. And as someone who has been there, I know that training on these skills has an immediate effect on the quality of reports—and in my case it made report writing easier and more focused.

Good news! We have six report writing workshops this fall. Here is the schedule:

Thief River Falls – September 23
Bemidji – September 24
Alexandria – October 7
Waite Park – October 8
Northfield – October 13
Preston – October 15

For more information and to register, go to:

www.lmc.org/police15RB

Up next: Helpful links to training information.

In the meantime, stay safe and be careful.



Rob