11.1 Police Report Writing
Key Takeaways
- POST Unit VIII.A, Report Writing, is a 24-hour required block — the single largest sub-topic in the entire Colorado academic program.
- Reports are written in the first person, active voice, past tense, in chronological order, in plain English rather than in radio codes.
- Every element of the charged Colorado statute must be supported by a specific fact in the narrative; conclusions without facts produce declined filings.
- Distinguish clearly among what the officer personally observed, what someone reported, and what the officer inferred — attribute every fact to a source.
- The report must be consistent with the body-worn camera recording, because under C.R.S. 24-31-902 the footage exists and will be compared to the narrative.
Police Report Writing
Unit VIII.A — Report Writing (24 required hours) is the largest single sub-topic in the entire Colorado POST Basic Academic Training Program. It exceeds Standardized Field Sobriety Testing and D.U.I. Enforcement, Crime Scene Investigation, Constitutional Law, and the Colorado Criminal Code as individually allocated blocks. That allocation is the Board telling recruits something plainly: the report is the job's permanent output.
Everything else an officer does is transient. The stop ends, the scene clears, the memory decays. The report is what a prosecutor charges from, what a defense attorney cross-examines from, what an appellate court reads years later, and what a jury hears read aloud.
1. Voice, Tense and Structure
| Standard | Correct | Incorrect |
|---|---|---|
| Person | First person: "I observed…" | "This officer observed…" |
| Voice | Active: "Smith struck Jones" | Passive: "Jones was struck" |
| Tense | Past | Mixed tense |
| Order | Chronological | Importance-ordered |
| Language | Plain English: "I got out of my car" | "I exited my vehicle and made contact" |
| Codes | Spelled out on first use | "Responded on a 10-31" |
A standard Colorado patrol narrative runs: dispatch information (what you were told, when, by whom), arrival observations, actions taken in order, statements with attribution, evidence and its disposition, the arrest or disposition with the legal basis, and outstanding investigative steps.
2. Facts, Not Conclusions
The defining discipline of report writing is replacing conclusions with the observations that produced them.
| Conclusion | Observation that supports it |
|---|---|
| "The driver was intoxicated." | "I detected a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage from his breath. His eyes were bloodshot and watery. He swayed approximately four inches side to side while standing. He said 'I only had two' three separate times." |
| "He became combative." | "He pulled his right arm forward out of my grip, turned toward me, and raised his closed right fist to shoulder height." |
| "The subject was acting suspicious." | "He stood at the rear door of a closed business at 0245, looked over both shoulders three times, and walked away rapidly when my headlights illuminated him." |
| "I feared for my safety." | "He was 6 feet away, had refused three commands to show his hands, and had just reached into his right waistband where I saw a rigid L-shaped bulge." |
A conclusion is the officer's opinion, and an opinion can be argued away. An observation is evidence.
3. Attribute Every Fact to a Source
A reader must be able to tell, sentence by sentence, whether a fact was observed, reported, or inferred:
- Observed: "I saw the rear window was broken outward, with glass on the exterior sidewalk."
- Reported: "Jones told me that Smith had thrown a rock through the window."
- Inferred: "Based on the glass distribution on the exterior, the window appeared to have been broken from inside the residence."
Blurring these is the most common source of cross-examination damage, because the officer ends up testifying to something they never actually saw.
4. Writing to the Elements
Before writing, list the elements of the Colorado statute. Then confirm that a fact in the narrative supports each one.
Third degree assault, C.R.S. 18-3-204:
| Element | Fact required |
|---|---|
| Knowingly or recklessly | The suspect's deliberate act and any statements of intent |
| Causes bodily injury | The specific injury — swelling, laceration, bruising — described, photographed, and its medical treatment |
| To another person | The victim's identity and the relationship |
Violation of a protection order, C.R.S. 18-6-803.5:
| Element | Fact required |
|---|---|
| A valid protection order exists | The issuing court, case number, date, and terms; how you verified it |
| The defendant had knowledge of the order | Served, present at issuance, or admitted knowledge — say which |
| The defendant violated a specific term | Quote the term and describe the violating conduct |
An element with no supporting fact means the report is not finished.
5. Probable Cause Affidavits and Warrant Applications
An affidavit is sworn, and it is read by a judge with no knowledge of the case. It must be self-contained:
- State the affiant's training and experience relevant to this conclusion.
- State the facts in chronological order, with the source of each.
- Establish reliability for informant information — the basis of knowledge and the informant's track record.
- For a search warrant, connect the items sought to the place to be searched with specific facts, and address staleness by explaining why the items are likely to still be there.
- Describe the place and the items with particularity.
- Include known exculpatory information. Omitting material facts to make the showing look stronger is a Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978), problem and, in Colorado, an untruthfulness exposure under C.R.S. 24-31-305(2.5).
6. Use-of-Force Documentation
Colorado's statutory framework makes force reporting an exacting task. The narrative must capture the officer's perception at the time — the Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), factors of severity of the offense, immediacy of the threat, and active resistance or flight — and it must also address the Colorado-specific statutory requirements:
- What nonviolent means were applied first, as C.R.S. 18-1-707(1) requires when possible;
- Why the degree of force was consistent with minimizing injury under 18-1-707(2)(b);
- How medical aid was ensured under 18-1-707(2)(c), with times;
- Any verbal warning given before deadly force under 18-1-707(4);
- Whether any other officer's force required intervention or a report under C.R.S. 18-8-802, and if so, that the written report was made within ten days.
7. Consistency With Body-Worn Camera
Under C.R.S. 24-31-902 nearly every Colorado public contact is recorded. Practical consequences:
- Review the footage before finalizing the report where policy allows, and note that you did.
- Explain differences rather than hiding them; perception under stress genuinely differs from what a camera captures, and saying so is credible.
- Never write something the video contradicts.
- Document any camera gap and its reason. Intentional failure to activate creates a permissive inference that the footage would have shown misconduct, plus a rebuttable presumption that unrecorded statements are inadmissible.
8. Mechanics and Common Errors
Proofread for the errors that cost cases: wrong date or time, transposed license plate or case number, victim and suspect names reversed, copy-paste from an unrelated report, and template language that does not match the facts. Spell names from the identification document, not from the pronunciation. Write the report the same day; a report written three days later is a memory reconstruction and will be cross-examined as one. And remember that drafts and field notes are discoverable under Crim. P. 16 — write the first version as though it is the final one, because functionally it is.
Which sentence best meets Colorado POST report writing standards for documenting a use of force?
An officer finishes a report and realizes it does not state how she verified that a protection order was valid or that the defendant knew about it. What is the significance?