Planning and Prep (Continued)

Let's delve further into how to plan and prepare for a law enforcement interview with a victim, witness, or suspect.  Let's get you planning a bit and watch your success rate climb.

I will personally guarantee that if you follow these planning steps, you will be more successful in your fact collecting :)

-LEO

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All right. Welcome back. You must have loved the first one. So let's dive right back into more advanced interviewing on the where planning and preparation. Where should you be doing the interview? Setting up the room. I already said removing barriers. You don't want to be sitting across the table like the old-fashioned cop movies where they got a light in their face. We don't want to be that cop. Get rid of the table. If you don't want to sit right next to them, just get rid of the table. It's fine. Bring a clipboard if you've got to do Miranda form or something. Or bring a little notebook with all your shit in it, with all your props and stuff that you're going to show this guy, which we're going to get into here shortly. Think about how risky it is to not have them handcuffed. I mentioned in the last episode what's the policy? Is this a murderer? Have they escaped before? Do they have a history of escape? That's something you should have looked up. Maybe you don't want to have they knocked out some cops? I mean, we deal with some dangerous people. So just consider that, you know, safety first and all that. How close are you going to sit to this person? It matters. Proximity can create anxiety. Proximity can create comfort, depending on the person and the timing and the rapport. Like I said last time, there would be overlap, but if your rapport is good, man, I'm not kidding you when I said I'll put my hand on another man's leg while he's about to cry because he tried to shoot a rival gang member and he hit a kid. And he's about to lose it. I'll put my hand right on his leg and go, Cow's fucked up. And I don't think you're a monster. And I don't think you meant to shoot that kid. And that's a bad thing that happened, but I don't think that's your character. And look him right in his eyes while I tell him that. And he'll usually be looking right at the ground. And tears start rolling and the mouth starts moving. But think about that beforehand. You probably can't start, you don't want to start the interview touching their leg, right? Plan that. You might need a little more space. Think about when you're going to get close to him. Her. Maybe if it's a girl and you're a guy, I don't know. It's a little different putting your hand on their leg. Luckily, not a lot, you know, not a lot of women shoot people. So it's usually dudes we're talking to. They're the violent ones. We're the violent ones. What about in a police car? If he's in a police car or she's in a police car and you're going to interview them, can you get them out? If you're going to conduct the interview right there, let's say that, let's say it's not murder and something crazy. Let's say they're shoplifting and you're just a patrol cop who wants to practice interviewing so that you can be a big bad detective one day and wear regular clothes to work, drive a regular car. So do you want to interview them where you're standing over them? You read a Miranda and then you stand over them. Generally, for me, no. I'm going to do one of two things if they're in a police car. I've done it a million times. I'm going to get them out. Usually I'm going to leave them in and I'm going to kneel down next to them. I want them the same level or even a little higher than me. I want them feeling a little bit empowered, not a whole lot scared. Because a big, tall cop, I'm 6'3 and I'm standing over them, making them nervous. I don't want them nervous. I want the nerves gone so they'll talk to me. Think about part of the where is also part of the who. If you're doing it in front of their house, are there people there that are going to make it worse? Family, friends, the other arresting officer that runs his mouth too much or just had a nasty use of force with this guy. That's part of the where. Like if you're doing it in his police car and the suspect's blood is in the backseat with him because he just got punched in the nose, like you might need to get him away from that cop who's in the front seat that just punched him in the nose, right? Or shot him, or God knows what else, or just tackled him and hurt him, hurt his feelings because he's slow. He got ran down. More wear considerations. This is if they're not in custody. What about doing interviews at their work? Do you want to do it there? I usually don't. People complain that they're going to get in trouble. They try to get out of the interview early. As soon as it turns uncomfortable, they'll be like, I really got to get back to work. I got to get back in here. I'm a, it's going to be a thing. And then they'll try to end the interview. I don't like doing it at work. Sometimes the boss will pop up, they'll be nosy. Hey, what's going on? Did he do something? Did he do something, officer? What'd he do? I knew he was up to something. You don't want to deal with that shit. What about at their house? I've done a lot of interviews at people's houses. Is it always safe? Absolutely not. They know where the gun is, they know where the knife is. Whatever weapon they got, blowtorch. They know their house. They know where the dog is. There might be other people there. There's all this stuff that comes with it. Sometimes you don't have a choice. You either do it at their house or you don't do it. And that's up to you. Do you want to go in or stand in the front door? I personally hate standing in the front door. I don't do interviews just standing in the door. We're going in or you're coming out. I mean, if if they're like, I'm going to stand in this doorway, maybe I guess we could do that. But most people, I'll be like, hey, can we come in? Like, you got nosy neighbors. They've been that's kind of my favorite because everybody thinks their neighbors are nosy. I'll be like, hey, you got nosy neighbors. They watch me walk up. Can we go in and like let them forget I'm even here? A lot of people are like, yeah, let's get in here. Come on. Or get them out and into your car or whatever. If it's a gang-ridden neighborhood, you know, you need to consider do you even want to go to that house? I mean, there's the safety concern, but if there's gang members out on the street, like they're just not going to talk to you in front of these guys. They're putting themselves in danger. They can't really welcome a cop in their house, a detective, a federal agent in their house if there's five bloods standing on the corner watching the city car pull up, watching the dude in the suit walk up to the door. Or even not the suit, but we just look like cops, right? They usually know when we when two of us walk to the door. What about at a police station? Might intimidate them. They might not show up. You know, if you try to set that up, another thing they'll do is they're likely, if they do give a confession, even if they weren't in custody, if it's in a police station, their lawyer's going to argue that they thought they were in custody, which is the standard. The standard isn't were they in custody? It's did they feel they were in custody? So did they feel that way? So if you do do it in a police station, man, I leave the door open if I can. I'm I'm the one maybe sitting with my back to the wall and they're near the door. So it's open and all they have to do is stand and turn and walk. Nothing's blocking them. That's the kind of crap that the courts analyze. Like, were they blocked? Was the door locked? Could they leave, et cetera, et cetera? Even interviews in cars. It's something to plan. Don't lock the doors. I've been quizzed by defense attorneys on what do your car's doors do when you shut it? Because I interviewed a dude in the car, he confessed to some stuff, and they wanted to know when you shut the door, does it lock? The implication being he was locked in a police car. That's what they were getting at. Even though he voluntarily got in the front seat of an unmarked car with me, and we shut the door, and the window was open and he was smoking a cigarette. But that's something to think about in advance is what are they gonna say? Are they gonna say that he thought he was in custody if he confesses to something wild? And just how comfortable do you want this person? Some people you want very comfortable, some people you don't because they'll take advantage of it. It goes back to knowing your case and knowing your person is how are they gonna react to having the control? If they're a gang leader-dominant personality, they may not react well to your interview if they're in control. They may interrogate you and give you no information. I've seen it done. They, these dudes are quiet and they just listen, and then they'll give out a tidbit of bull crap, and then they'll ask something about their case, and the cop will rattle off a bunch of stuff, and they're just collecting information from the officer. So think about how comfortable you want this person in advance. And just always be thinking safety. That's always in mind, no matter what you're doing, is how do I not get shot today? Let's talk about the when, the sequence within the investigation. I did previous interviews with Rob and Al about homicide investigations. I remember Al talking about this specifically. When do you fit the interview into your case? It shouldn't just be random. It shouldn't just be he's in custody, so we're gonna talk to him. Do you want to talk to him before he's in custody? Depends on the situation. So do it with intent. Be intentional. Do you want to do it before or after evidence is seized? Depends on the case, pre-or post-arrest, like I said. Do you want to do it early in the morning when they're still bleary-eyed? Do you want to do it immediately after the crime? A lot of time, if that's an option, that's good. You know, if you can get them in the box immediately after the crime. Do you want to do it at their work? That's when slash where, in the presence of their girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, parent. A lot of time they'll do this, you know, 18-year-old shot somebody and they're like, I just want my mama. Get my mama. Or you're talking to somebody and they're like, ah, my wife can be in here, but the wife's constantly interrupting your interview. So that's part of the win. Are you going to do it at their house when the wife is home? Or have you done your research and you know when she's at work? And you know she shoots off at the mouth all the time, and you don't want her there. So you're going to plan around that because you're a smart cop. Let's get into why. Why are we talking to this person? Do we want a confession? Are we debriefing the victim the victim witness, trying to get all the details of what happened, stuff that can help us? Are we gathering evidence against co-conspirators? It there's a lot of overlap between the why and the what. What do we want to know and why do we want to know it? Very similar. Then the how. This is a big topic. How do we get, how do we collect facts from this person? If it's a suspect, you want them to tell you about the worst thing they've ever done. And so they don't want to tell you because you're a cop and you're probably going to get them in trouble. So, how do we do it? I'm going to cover some of the other topics at a very like thousand-yard level, mile high, looking down. We'll go into the details on it later. But this is some of the stuff that I'll be covering in these future episodes once we leave the planning and preparation, which is still where we are. We're still in planning and prep. Just getting ready for the interview. Plan out your approaches, plan out how to build rapport. How are you going to get this person talking? How are you going to get them to maybe not necessarily like you, but to respect you? Maybe even like you, but to have a reasonable conversation with you and not shut down. Not say things like, give me my lawyer dirty, or get out of my face, pig. I got nothing to say to you. We don't want to, we don't want to hear that really. So plan your approach to this person. How will we break them when they're lying? Have a plan. Understand the nonverbals. And that goes for us as well as them. We always think about their nonverbal, their micro expressions, all this crap that there's TV shows about. What about our nonverbals? I mentioned standing over somebody while they sit in the back of a police car. Give me a break. That's a bad nonverbal. That's I'm in charge. You're nothing. That's how it makes them feel. So think about your own plan, your own nonverbal behavior. Are you, if you're a big guy and you're interviewing a 110-pound female and you're a 260-pound man, you might not want to spread out across the table and take up all this space, even if that's how you naturally sit. You might need to shrink your frame a little bit so that she doesn't feel terrified by your presence. Right? Just staying on the how of planning and preparation. Are you hoping to lock them into a statement and then refute it with evidence? They call that like strategic use of evidence, stuff like that. That might be part of your plan. Are you gonna have Google Earth to show them, you know, where things are so that they can show you the path they took? Maybe you have that app on your phone, the Google Earth app, so that you can move it around and they can say, oh yeah, we started here, we were at the store, and then we went over here. No, we went down 37th, you're looking at 38th. I mean, that's great. I I do that all the time. I plan to do this to when I regurgitate info, do it wrong. If they're like, oh yeah, we shot them at 37th and Montgomery, and we drove straight east till we hit Abercorn Street. And then we did this and that. And I'll be like, when I repeat it, I'll be like, all right, all right, so I'm kind of slow, so make sure I got it right. So y'all shot the boy at 37th and Montgomery because you thought he had a gun or whatever. And then you went east to Bull and then you turned north. And he'll be like, no, no, no, Abercorn. We went east to Abercorn. I remember because it was where such and such wings was, or it was it where Savannah Market is, whatever, some store. And so it strengthens their story. Social media access. The suspect's cell phone, are you gonna have that ready if they say, Oh, I have info in my phone that can prove what I'm saying? Are you gonna have that phone ready? Did you plan for this? Or is that already put into evidence somewhere? Or is it plugged in, being dumped? And so now you can't access it. But he's saying, I got a photo on there of the body in this file or whatever. And then do you have photos of the other people you want identified? So that if this guy becomes cooperative, you can show you can show it to him. You have a little file, you don't have to bust it out immediately. But if he says, Oh, yeah, you know, I was with Rico and Suave, you can pull out some pictures and go, you see Rico and Suave in these pictures? And and plan on it. Do you need to do a lineup? If he knows them well, if these are his friends and co-conspirators, generally you don't. I mean, you don't want to shove when he says Rico, you don't want to go, just Rico, right? Like that's not good police work, obviously, but you also probably don't need to do a six-pack lineup. Uh, know your policies and rules and have common sense with that. But I digress a bit. Have the pictures, have the materials that you need. So let's talk about a written plan. This is something I would venture to say none of my listeners have done, which is writing out an interview plan. When I did, I don't I don't want to break any classified info, so I'm gonna be very vague. When I did interrogations in certain places and circles, we wrote out interview plans and it works. You can write out what your approaches are, what stuff you're gonna bring, what your props are. If he says, it's it's almost like a little tree that shoots out. If I say, Were you there? and he says no, it's like choose your own adventure. If I say, Were you at the shooting scene, and he says, yes, here's my next question. And if he says, no, I'm going back to rapport building. Back in rapport, we're back becoming friends again. It's this whole plan of what you're gonna do. It's planning contingencies for when your plans fail. It's a great reminder of the elements of the crime and that you need to cover that. You can just put that at the top, elements. Or you can have it written into the questioning plan. If it's a complex case, which a lot of these are, it's easy to do an interview and then an hour later be like, oh, I didn't even, they they said Janie was out there. I didn't even ask them if Janie was there. I forgot. And now you got this guy who may be in the jail. He may be free and off running, God knows what, doesn't want to talk to you again. And it's too late. So it'll help you to remember it. So just try that. Try writing down an interview plan. The next time you're gonna do it, I don't care if it's a shoplifting, write out an interview plan. I'm gonna say, why? I'm gonna start with, hey, I'm officer Leo. You're in custody, so I got to read you these rights. Why'd you steal these shirts? Let's say that's your first question. Why'd you steal these polos, these 50 polo shirts? If he says, I didn't steal them, that's gonna go left and we're gonna go down this little tree, these little branches. If he says, because my kids need school clothes, ooh, that's good. Now we're gonna go right and we're gonna go down these little branches. Just write it out. Give it a try for me. I appreciate it. Let's get into props and what you're gonna bring into the room with you. There's real props and there's fake props. There's big folders full of nothing useful. And there's criminal histories. There's plea deals. If you're doing, we'll go back to possession of fire and buy a felon. You may bring a copy of his plea agreement in there where he says, Yeah, I'm a felon, but I don't, I don't really know. Does that mean I can't have a gun? And he's playing stupid, and I've slide the plea agreement over. I go, well, you know, looks like you pled out on July 27, 2024. Read me block three right there. Yeah, it says, I agree not to possess firearms or ammunition. And that's your signature under it. All right, do you remember now? Does that jog your memory? You see what I'm saying? Having that prop in there. Have what you need. If there was a gun recovered, having a picture of it. Most of them look kind of distinct. People can pick out their own gun. So if they say, Yeah, I threw a gun, that's a good time to pull the picture out and go, is that your gun? Yeah. Okay, cool. You just had the gun to them. Surveillance pictures and video, have them accessible. You don't want to have to go, oh, let me go try to pull this video up. And then you're out there for 15 minutes effing around because you suck at technology because you're in your 40s like me. And he's starting to think, man, why am I talking to this guy? So have that stuff lined up. Social media search warrants, the exports, all those files that you need. I mean, that could be a whole different beast, but making the individual PDFs of the relevant content instead of having a 10,000 page PDF file. Photo lineups ready. If you're gonna show a lineup, have that thing printed already. You don't have to come start with it, slap it on the table and go, all right, I'm here to do a photo lineup. I'm Detective Leo with Memphis Police. I'm here to do this photo lineup with you. Appearances can change, hairstyles can change, skin tones can change based on lighting, and you go through your little thing you read. Like, just have it in the folder. And when they're ready, that's when we're gonna present it to them. House and car photographs. If you think they frequent a house, if you're talking about a gang investigation, have a picture of that gang headquarters. And if they start talking, if they don't talk about it, you just keep it in the folder. They never even see it. But if they're like, oh yeah, we hang out at this place, we call it HQ. That's where everybody meets every morning, then we go rob people. And you pull out the picture of 123 Powell Street, and they're like, that's HQ. That's that's good. Historical sell site info, have that ready. It might be just to, you know, refute their uh their statements or whatever, but have it available. Sometimes you only get one chance at the interview. The social media warrants, what you gotta do is not edit them because that sounds illegal as heck, but pull out the relevant part. I know I already said that, but you can't just be showing them a ton of stuff. It's it looks much more professional if you just go, is this your Instagram conversation? Who is Johnny Two Guns? Because you already know. We all know who Johnny Two Guns is. And they're like, oh yeah, that's such and such. Okay. What are y'all talking about when you said, I need that banger? Bring it over here. Is that a gun? Oh, yeah, that's a gun. But if you don't have that conversation printed out, it's just a hot mess. Let's get into cutting off defenses and how to plan and prepare to cut off their obvious defenses. The first thing you want to think about before you go into the interview room is what is the obvious lie that they're gonna tell? So, how about I wasn't even there? I've never been there. I don't know her. I'm accused of doing something to her. I don't even know her. I don't even like doing crime. Why would I do crime? I'm a good dude. I go to work, I got kids, I live life church style. So just figure out how to cut that. Off and think about what they're gonna say. Is there any reason you'd be on video? Is there any reason your fingerprints would be in that store? If you say you've never been to that store, is there any reason your finger what is what does that get them thinking? They got a fingerprint. I didn't say I got your fingerprint. I said, is there any reason that your fingerprint would be in that store? If their answer is, did you did you get my print? They were probably in the store, right? How about this? Did you have your cell phone? Do you carry your cell phone with you? Yeah. Oh, all right. Is there any chance your cell phone would have been over there at that time, at the time of this incident? They're gonna start sweating probably because they know damn well if they were over there and their phone was there, they know that there was a digital trail that they left behind. And then having good case knowledge on the front end, it does so much. I already mentioned previously that, you know, it can corroborate confessions or negate confessions if they're falsely confessing. We want to know that too. But it does a lot of other things. It builds credibility if I know what the hell I'm talking about. If I know nicknames, gang names, suspect vehicles. If they say, oh yeah, we did the lick, we we took the black car, did the lick, we did the robbery or whatever it was. We hit somebody, we did the lick and we took the black car. And I go, You talking about the Audi? Because I know they have a stolen Audi they keep hidden that they use for, you know, ops for missions. And the dude, when you have knowledge, you don't have to say it brag, you don't have to say it too soon, but when you show them you know something and they're surprised, it can crack people right there. They get a look like, oh, this isn't just another dumbass old cop. This old dude knows our group. He's looking at us, he knows about the Audi. I don't like that. The codes and rules of the gang, you should know that, or the group. There's lots of sources to get this information. If you're the just the interviewer, but you're not the case agent, you can listen to prior interviews, you can, or if you're the case agent, let's stick with that. Prior interviews build your case knowledge, jail calls, search warrants on houses, social media, cell phone dumps, different police databases, NCIC, all this stuff builds your case knowledge. And you need to be able to keep that in your head if you want to be a good investigator. Plan to ask them if you don't know something. It's way better, I think, to let them know you don't know. If they keep using a phrase you don't know, say I'll go back to HQ. If they keep saying, like, oh yeah, we went to HQ and you don't know that term, does it? What's worse, like leaving the interview, being like, I wonder what HQ is, or just going, you keep saying HQ, what is that? Oh, that's headquarters. That's where we go. I go, all right, where's that at? Go ahead and explore that a little bit. But be prepared on the front end, you know, know as much as you can, but also be prepared. I think you look more stupid if you don't know what you're if you don't explore that. Like there's a saying, don't submit to pluralistic ignorance. Like, if nobody in the room but him knows what he's talking about, and the cops in the room are like, I don't know what HQ is, or he keeps saying this word and I just don't know it. You know, if you're not a drug cop and he keeps saying juice, you don't know that means an ounce, and you just roll with it, it just doesn't really work. So ask yourself this if you're an investigator or if you're a just a police officer or if you're a corrections officer. If you do an interview, do you plan for it? And if the answer is no, will you try? Okay, try some of this stuff, try writing one out, try just thinking, even just thinking for 30 seconds to a minute, if it's a side of the road interview, how I'm gonna do this. And think about when it's worked. Once you do it, evaluate what you just did and decide: did this work? Did planning help at all? And I'm telling you right now it will. And then next episode will be on rapport building. That that should be the first phase, essentially, of the interview. You know, it shouldn't be slap down the Miranda form and get things started. It should be building rapport, building comfort with you, building trust that you're just not out to get somebody. So we'll get into rapport building next Friday. I hope you're enjoying this and please provide feedback. Like I said on the last episode, whether it's a personal message, which I've gotten quite a few of, of people saying either this has helped or this has been my experience on this. You know, a lot of law enforcement don't want to put their name on a public, you know, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, any of those pages. So shoot me a message. Hopefully I'll see it and I'll address it publicly without using your name. So thanks for listening. Looking forward to next week. Goodbye.