Can you read police reports online

You may obtain a copy of an official Accident Report that the officer completed if you were an operator of one of the vehicles in the accident, or the owner of a vehicle involved in the accident, or an injured party, or an insurance company requesting on behalf of their clients, or attorneys representing clients in a civil action. For any assistance, please contact the Division of Motor Vehicles at An incident sheet is a very brief description of calls that officers respond to.

An incident sheet is typically one page of information that includes the date and time of an incident, the location, and the name s of officer s who responded to the scene. If you are the victim in a crime, you may call the police department at any time to check on the status of your case.

Whether or not a report can be released depends mostly on its status. If you need to remain anonymous, you may contact Crime Stoppers. Mention the General Offense Number and date and time of the incident. This is called redacting and it is done to protect the privacy of the people involved in the incident.

This is a major reason why it takes time to prepare crime reports for online posting. Once a suspect has been booked into jail, their name is no longer private. People sometimes confuse the criminal behavior involved in a burglary versus a robbery. They may also not realize there is a difference between aggravated assaults posted here and less serious assaults. The official FBI definitions of the crime types posted here are, as follows:. This type of assault is usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or by other means likely to produce death or great bodily harm.

Deaths caused by negligence, suicide or accident and justifiable homicides are not included in this crime category. Murder attempts are classified as aggravated assaults. An index usually is kept by date, and then within each date is a list of the addresses of the places approved to be searched that day. In other cases the index may just be numerically arranged by a number the court assigns for each warrant. Search warrants are not indexed according to the names of the people whose property is being searched or seized, which can make it difficult for a reporter to track down the files.

Search warrants have to be obtained to search everything from a residence or business to a vehicle or other personal property, such as a storage facility or a bank safety deposit box. Usually this is done if the search warrant affidavit contains sensitive information that would jeopardize an investigation if made public.

This tutorial was originally written by Paul Grabowicz for students in his Computer Assisted Reporting class, and later modified for public use. This content may not be republished in print or digital form without express written permission from Berkeley Advanced Media Institute.

Please see our Content Redistribution Policy. Police Records. Police Reports Police investigate crimes and arrest people, but they do not charge people with crimes.

Thus almost no police investigative records are posted online. Arrest Report This report provides details on an arrest made by police. Sample Arrest Reports: O. Bush DUI — Smoking Gun website Crime or Incident Report This report provides details on police responses to citizen calls for assistance, reports of accidents or reports of crimes being committed. Here are links to some Bay Area police department web sites that have information on obtaining police records: Oakland Police Department Richmond Police Department San Francisco Police Department See, for example, this San Francisco Chronicle story about how police in San Francisco cut back public access to police records, even basic information from arrest and incident report logs.

Arrest Warrants Police often will obtain an arrest warrant signed by a judge to apprehend a person. Arrest Logs A police department keeps an arrest log that has the names and addresses of people arrested by police officers, where they were arrested and other details about the circumstances of the arrests and the people arrested. Much of this information is readily available via the Internet.

Conducting your investigation can become complicated if you need to do a background search on someone who has lived in multiple jurisdictions. To simplify things, an internet-based specialized investigation company can provide a comprehensive, multi-state search in one easy step.

This allows you to search for multiple records from all over the country quickly and easily. And you can avoid the hassle of tracking down individual records from various government entities.

BeenVerified has an online search form for public records. The form will search multiple public records databases and provide a list of potential matching names. If you have any questions about how to get a copy of your police report, please leave a comment below. Also, view more Law Enforcement Resources. There were witnesses of the assault and it was two against one. They almost killed me ; 17 staples to the back of my head and 14 stitches to the front of my face my upper nose was crushed.

I had a fractured skull with blood behind my eardrums. The police only charged them with harrassment???? This happened in in corry Pennsylvania after witch I moved back to my home town, until when I moved back to corry Pa with my two young boys and shortly there after married a woman from the town. What can I do? I am gathering police reports and court dockets on myself for a background check, the agency that requires these from me does none of the document gatherings, but requires the person whose background check is under review to do it.

All agencies Police Departments and Courts have been great, except one. They say the agency who wants me to get the report for my background check review has to request it, so each side it telling me mutually exclusive things.

Any ideas for what I can do? The case is not open or pending, I already have the court docket that says I completed everything. After a case is closed, why is it still difficult to get records of a public complaint of a police officer? Depending on the State, the complaint may or may nor be public.

I was stopped by Maryland police on an annoumous caller stating I was a possible DUI, a sobriety test cleared me in that accusation, but police took my 8 year old grand-daughter from my vehicle by force, put me in handcuffs, and made a non-probable cause arrest. I never saw my grand-daughter again. I was cleared from all charges, bu8t there is no evidence or mention in the police report concerning my grand-daughter. Where can I find out this information? I believe my ex-daughter-in-law made a false report to police leading them to believe it was a kidnapping.

How can I find out? I was told by YOLO county that I can not obtain a copy of my police report because someone in my vehicle was arrested.

Can they do that? I think your best course of action is to contact a local attorney. They can advise you if you are legally entitled to get a copy of the police report.

And they can advise whether or not you have a case regarding an illegal and inappropriate search. Then go home to your dark home if you still have it and listen to the babies cry. The detective interviewed me and the DA chose not file charges. Now I need to get a copy of the police report so that I can see the false accusations and file a counter-criminal complaint about the false accusations but the clerk of courts will not let me do that because I have not been charged and have no docket number.

Please advise if this IS possible and how.