Police statement Help on question ask by police please.

It's usually a Standard Uniform Police Traffic Collision Report, which officers carry, I'm assuming sheriffs office would as well.

It's also coded and a fill in the blanks type form.

ETA: Generally, homicide unit takes over when it's a fatal... Entails a more investigative type questioning where all witnesses are separated etc.

barbilarry said:

My MC is at the police station. A deputy is getting ready to take his statement. It concerns the death of a car wreck victim. And the witness account of the accident. My question is this. Where would I find a copy of a questaire? Or do the police just ask random questios. If that is the case, where would I find information on those kind of questions?
Jane

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The only real standard question I can think of that would be asked would be:

"Tell me what happened."

The person relays events and that leads to other questions for clarification purposes. But basically, most of the time, in that situation, the lead off question is "tell me what happened."

((of course, an extremely idiotic one asked by police at some car wrecks of people obviously injured in the car wreck is "are you okay?" I still want to go back to that time frame and be able to remove myself from underneath the vehicle, stand up say "NO!" and hit the guy so hard his great grandchildren are born bruised. No wait...that's wrong of me to say. I'd rather he *DIDN'T* reproduce!))

Rabe...

You want to place the witness geographically. Where were you? Where was the car? Pedestrian? Which direction was it traveling? Where was it when you first saw it? How fast was the car going? Did you observe the driver? What was he doing? On cell phone? Eating sandwich? talking with passenger? What was pedestrian, other car doing? Did you see the traffic light? What color was the light for car #1? car #2? What happened after the collision?
All of these are prompts you can give to the witness, in addition to Rabe's "What did you see?"

barbilarry said:

Thanks Little Red Barn
I have googled and looked everywhere. I was looking for some type of standard form to go from. Haven't had any luck yet. Now I will go back and google instances where homicide takes over.

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My opinion/experience? Homicide would only take over if there is some question as to the cause of the accident (such as DUI related crash from another vehicle, someone running another person off the road, etc. Basically, if there's the possibility that the accident was less an accident.)

barbilarry said:

ROTFL, You have given me a place to start. If and when I get more answers I will go back to this scene and expand it. For now, I will use the "Tell me what happened?" And ask questions I think a police officer would ask my MC. Said officer, could not ask my victim, if she was ok, 'cause I already killed her off. This is my first attempt at writing a mystery, so I imagine I will be taking up residence on this thread.

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So you would be talking with witnesses then?

Recall that the officer will ask them for what happened verbally - and then after that would ask them to fill out statement forms. This is for two reasons - because there is a LOT of information to collect/collate and most officers aren't expecting to remember everything that witnesses say and the more important reason - give witnesses something else to do and to get them to feel as if they've been helpful rather than following the officers around the accident scene and being 'helpful' that way.

Also remember, that they won't encourage witnesses to get together and tell the story all at once, but will speak with them separately and have them fill out their statements separately. So that they get a clearer, untainted picture of what happened.

If the accident is a fatal accident, most likely you'll have a lot of officers at the scene (as well as firecrew/EMTs and the sort) so one officer may even have the 'fun' assignment of witness wrangling.

In Nevada the standard accident report form is known as a Form5. It's the one that all agencies use because it's the one that needs to be turned into the state for statistics tracking. You'll hear fatalities referred to as a K5 as that's the code on the Form5 indicating that particular involved person was killed as a result of the 'accident'.

Rabe...

I don't know about the question process but the reports usually read something like this:

The driver of V1 traveled westbound in the center lane of Franklin Boulevard W. at a high rate of speed and approached the intersection of N.E. 2nd Place, where V2, a wheeled fruit stand, was stationed on the northwest corner. V1 lost traction while braking late for a stop signal, skidding onto the sidewalk. Occupant of V2, fruit stand owner, was ejected and traveled several feet and came to rest in the swale along with several fruits. V2 occupant was trauma alerted to the hospital in seriously pissed off condition (V2 occupant's clothes stained with fruit). Driver of V1 was uninjured and issued a uniform traffic citation for reckless driving.

The Lonely One said:

I don't know about the question process but the reports usually read something like this:

The driver of V1 traveled westbound in the center lane of Franklin Boulevard W. at a high rate of speed and approached the intersection of N.E. 2nd Place, where V2, a wheeled fruit stand, was stationed on the northwest corner. V1 lost traction while braking late for a stop signal, skidding onto the sidewalk. Occupant of V2, fruit stand owner, was ejected and traveled several feet and came to rest in the swale along with several fruits. V2 occupant was trauma alerted to the hospital in seriously pissed off condition (V2 occupant's clothes stained with fruit). Driver of V1 was uninjured and issued a uniform traffic citation for reckless driving.

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"occupant" should be either D1 of V2 or P1 of V2 (depending on what position he was in at the time of the accident). Though I'm not sure how a 'fruit stand' would be considered a 'vehicle', so why it would be given a "V" designation.

Rabe...

barbilarry said:

This is what is going on with the wip. First scene has the victim running to her car away from antagonist.

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Let me make some statements based on your post here regarding your WiP.

These are merely observations and I hope they make you think of how this story comes across:

I don't buy that even a meth addict, when running away from an antagonist, would hop in her car, drive a short distance - stop to do some meth - then flee again.

You state that the victim is going to have a heart attack brought on by meth overdose (then later state it's additives to the meth that killed her) yet she is alive and able to knock the cellphone away from the MC when he goes to help her?

Why does the MC wait to get to the car before calling 911?

Did the meth addict actually take the socially responsible time to fasten her seatbelt before driving in the storm? This will change the dynamics of where she is and what she can do (including the possibility of being ejected from the accident).

MC takes dead girl out of the car and then drives to the police station? Uhm...how about a hospital?

How deep is the water where the accident takes place that it 'drowns' the cellphone? I've done traffic stops in major thunderstorms where just walking from my car to the offender car made me completely soaked and my cellphone remained working fine. Of course, there were multiple violator vehicles that day (I was soaked until the end of my shift).

So, based on what you posted here, those are some observations I have regarding it. It might be better to have the MC flag down another car and ask THEM to call 911 for him and leave the girl at the scene while he tries to revive her with his workplace required CPR skills.

Rabe...

I was a witness to a multi-car fatal accident ... at the scene, all they did was take my name, address and phone number because it was pretty chaotic and they wanted to clear the intersection.

I did not go to the police station, I got a call from the investigator. He was very careful to not ask "leading questions" or give me any information about the accident that might contaminate my memory of it. He was recording all this for later transcription - they told me it would be recorded as soon as they knew I was the person they wanted to talk to.

He got the name, age, occupation stuff out of the way immediately.

They then established my actions for the time just before the accident happened ... how did I end up in position to be a witness? An open-ended question.

Then it was the open-ended "tell me what you saw"?

Then it was "what did you do after the accident"?

Because I was doing first aid on the victims, he asked me "did they talk to you"?

Because I answered "Yes", he asked "do you remember anything they said"?

He was extremely careful to ask neutral questions. They sent a cop to the scene to make sure I could have seen what I reported seeing, and that the details of the normal traffic flow were as I reported it.

Sometime before trial, I met with the DA and verified that the transcription of the call was correct.

I have the same problems that Rabe did,

Plus - dark and stormy night so how did he see the wreck.

Correct response - if he has any first aid training at all - is to call 9-1-1 to report the wreck and stay on the phone with them as you examine the wreck and the passengers.

If he has any first aid training, you learn you don't move injured people. "pulling them out of the wreck" doesn't usually happen ... unless there is fire, or some compelling reason like a heart attack.

If she had had a heart attack, he should be doing CPR right next to the wreck, not hauling her onto the road, or to the cops.

Rabe's last post (#10) brings up some excellent points. I too thought it rang a little false that he would bring her to the police station - a hospital seems much more likely.
And I don't know what state you're in, but in Texas, if the crash occurs outside a city's limits, then it's the highway patrol that handles it, not the sheriff's office. They would likely work out of the same office, but different uniforms and procedures and all that.
It does seem possible that he might not call 911 until he'd pulled her out, simply because of the shock of the mangled wreckage and blood everywhere, etc. But if she's so close to dead, it's a little odd that she's got the strength to knock the phone out of his hand.

Maybe his hands are covered in blood from trying to help her and he's cold and shaking and freaked out, and when he fumbles for the phone, he drops it in a puddle before he can call.

Just a suggestion, take it for what it's worth. Good luck!