Crime Scene Log: Fill & Download for Free

I’m going to guess that I’m the Tim referenced in the question, even though I didn’t see a A2A about it.When a serious crime happens and there are going to be numerous detectives, supervisors, technicians, etc. involved, one officer (usually a junior officer without much experience or seniority) is detailed as the crime scene log keeper. He plants himself at the entrance to the crime scene and writes down the name and rank of everyone going in, along with the time of their entrance and exit.This might seem like a simple task, but there is a political element, as there is with most other aspects of police work. Some of the cops and maybe a few others will come by to sightsee, and don’t want there to be an official record of their presence. They will tell the rookie with the clipboard, “Don’t put my name on that log.”This exact scenario is often covered specifically in the police academy, often by whomever teaches the class in gathering and booking evidence. They will alert the recruits to this ploy, and tell them, “I don’t care how long Captain Whatshisbutt has been a cop or how scary he is. You write his name on the log sheet.”At the police department where I worked, Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) was that anyone who attended the crime scene was to write a supplemental report on why they were there and what they did. This might seem innocent enough, but it’s kind of embarrassing to have to write, “I heard this was a gory crime scene, and I love that kind of stuff. I went in and looked around to satisfy my curiosity, then I left. I told that f***ing rookie not to put my name on the log, and he did, anyway. He’s going to be working the graveyard shift with alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays off until I retire.”The report won’t really have the part following “I left,” but some top brass will do that and worse.So, Rookie, are you going to follow SOP and write down the names of all the lookie loos, or are you going to comply with Captain Whatshisbutt’s order? Hint: there is no right answer. Both paths are fraught with danger, which is the main reason this task is assigned to the most junior cop present.And, if the OP had another Tim in mind, I apologize.

The typical first responder to a homicide scene will be a patrol officer. Once the officer ascertains that a homicide has occurred, and assuming there are no suspects on scene, most of his job will be securing the crime scene and awaiting the arrival of detectives and crime scene investigators. A good practice is to keep field notes of what you did and when you did it for later reference.Once the detectives and/or crime scene folks arrive, the officer, or possibly some other officer, will be assigned to keep a crime scene log. This is a list of everyone who enters the crime scene, along with the time they entered and left (even if they go in and out several times), and often the stated purpose of their visit. Most agencies require everyone whose name appears on that list to complete a supplemental report detailing everything they did at the crime scene.This can be a bit of a political obstacle course. Management types and even senior officers will show up at the crime scene when they have no legitimate business there. They will want to look around for curiosity purposes. They will then try to intimidate the log keeper from adding their names to the roster, e.g. “You don’t need to put my name on there,” suggesting covertly or overtly that bad things will happen to them if they do their job according to policy. Each officer has to decide whether he is best served following policy or staying on the good side of the senior personnel. There is no good answer to that question.When the officer has secured from the crime scene, he writes his report from memory and/or his field notes. In my day, the report would be written on paper with a pen or a typewriter, but these days, the officer will probably type the report into the mobile terminal in his patrol car or a terminal at the police station. The report will contain the details of how the officer came to be at the crime scene (saw something unusual on patrol, was dispatched there, was hailed by a citizen, etc.), what he saw and did at the crime scene, and how he handed off the case to other officers.

HAPPY GRADUATION, ROOKIE!It was my second night on the job. Brand new out of the police academy, wide-eyed and ready to fight crime. It was graduation night in our little city so teenagers were driving around town honking horns and hanging out of the windows. Just the normal graduation stuff.One graduate had a party at his house and I think half of the people from a neighboring housing project attended. Probably two hundred people were on all sides of the house. The beer was flowing and a DJ was booming the latest tunes that half the town could hear, through huge speakers in the backyard.It was getting late and a plan was already in place for “turning out the party” at eleven PM. It’s a cop term meaning bringing the party to a close so the music would stop by 11 PM and we hoped people wouldn’t get drunk enough to act stupid. No such luck.The first call was for a fight. As we are speeding to the location the call comes from dispatch that people are injured and there is either a knife or gun involved.Now my heart is racing. As we turn the corner and are about a block away, all we can see is people running in every direction. As we get closer some are pointing toward the house. I wasn’t the first car to arrive and I can see officers carrying a young male toward their police car. I helped and we got him into the car. The officer then raced toward the hospital which was only about two minutes away.One of the senior officers (which in my case was everybody) hands me a big yellow roll of crime scene tape and tells me to tie it between the telephone poles out front and to mark off a perimeter all the way around the house. Once that was done I had the impossible duty of keeping all civilians out of the crime scene.I would stand there all night with my little notebook writing the names down of each police official who entered the scene. Several looked over and said, I’m not here officially. So their name stayed off my list. I learned by about 3 a.m. that an uninvited guest at the party had been showing too much interest in a young lady.The response from the boyfriend was to stab the guest once in the chest. The guest died and I would learn later that he actually died in the back of the police car. The one stab wound went under his rib cage and hit his aorta and he died very quickly.From the happiest of occasions to horrific tragedy: it was a scene which would play out more than once in my career. I recall asking myself several times that night “what have I gotten myself into?”I was only a fringe player keeping a crime scene log, but it was my second day, and already I was part of a homicide case.