Some will decline to release any police reports. Some will provide most reports but withhold those that concern sensitive pending cases. Some will routinely provide the reports but with sensitive information edited out. There also are general exemptions that police can cite, such as that the release of information would endanger someone’s life or undermine an investigation, to decline to provide copies of arrest or crime/incident reports.Īs a result, police departments vary widely in how they respond to reporters’ requests for arrest or crime reports. While police records are subject to state public records laws like the California Public Records Act, many types of police records are specifically exempt from disclosure. Simpson road rage incident in Miami – Smoking Gun website
There are two main types of reports written by police officers – arrest reports and crime or incident reports. Thus almost no police investigative records are posted online. Police records thus are not part of the court system, and documents like arrest reports or crime/incident reports kept at police departments are not presumed to be open to the public as court records are. Charges are filed by prosecutors – such as a district attorney’s office – and a court case is only opened when a person has been formally charged. Police investigate crimes and arrest people, but they do not charge people with crimes.
This guide describes for reporters what records are publicly available in criminal cases investigated by police, focusing on California. Very few criminal records are available on the Internet.