When you interview people, try to elicit as much information as possible by asking open-ended questions. Gather documents and other evidence. Almost every investigation will rely to some extent on documents -- personnel files, email messages, company policies, correspondence, and so on.
And some investigations will require you to gather other types of evidence, such as drugs, a weapon, photographs, or stolen items. Evaluate the evidence. The most challenging part of many investigations -- especially if witnesses disagree or contradict each other -- is figuring out what actually happened. There are some proven methods of deciding where the truth lies -- methods all of us use in our everyday lives to get to the bottom of things.
You'll want to consider, for example, whose story makes the most sense, whose demeanor was more convincing, and who if anyone has a motive to deceive you. And in some situations, you may just have to throw up your hands and acknowledge that you don't have enough information to decide what really happened. Take action. Once you decide what happened, you'll have to figure out what to do about it. If you conclude that serious wrongdoing occurred, you will have to take disciplinary action quickly to avoid legal liability for that employee's behavior and to protect your company and other workers from harm.
In deciding how to handle these situations, you should consider a number of factors, including how serious the actions were and how you have handled similar problems in the past. Document the investigation. Once your investigation is complete, you should write an investigation report that explains what you did and why. This will not only give the company some protection from lawsuits relating to the investigation, but will also provide a written record in case of future misconduct by the same employee s.
Among other things, your report should explain how and when the problem came to the company's attention, what interviews you conducted, what evidence you considered, what conclusions you reached, and what you did about the problem. Follow up. The last step is to follow up with your employees to make sure that you've solved the problem that led to the investigation. Has the misconduct stopped? Has the wrongdoer met any requirements imposed as a result of the investigation -- for example, to complete a training course on sexual harassment?
If the investigation revealed any systemic workplace problems such as widespread confusion about company policy or lack of training on issues like workplace diversity or proper techniques for dealing with customers , some training might be in order. The information provided on this site is not legal advice, does not constitute a lawyer referral service, and no attorney-client or confidential relationship is or will be formed by use of the site.
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With this expiration of life and safety issues, also comes the expiration of exigent circumstances and the additional authorities to detain persons suspected and to enter and search private property without a warrant. Clearly understanding and being able to define and articulate the circumstances of either an active event and tactical response, or a controlled event and a strategic response is critical.
In court, it becomes important for a police investigator to describe what they were told going into the complaint, what they saw and heard when they arrived at the complaint, and, most importantly, what they were thinking to justify the action that was taken.
For the court to be satisfied that the investigator acted lawfully, the judge needs to hear the investigator describe their thinking process to form reasonable grounds, or in some emergency cases, to have a reasonable suspicion that justifies the action taken. To properly articulate their thinking in these investigative responses, it is important for the officer to understand the situational elements that can help define their thinking process when they testify in court.
Two of the most important situational elements to understand are event classification and offence recognition. In order to enter any investigation in either the tactical or the strategic response mode, an investigator must engage their thinking processes and make decisions about the event they are confronting. Is it an active event in progress that requires immediate and decisive tactical actions; or is it an inactive event where a less urgent, slower, and more strategic approach can be taken?
This slower and more considered approach is the strategic investigative response, and the situational elements of this approach will be discussed in detail later in this chapter. Thinking about these situational elements of active event or inactive event is call event classification. For each of these classifications of active event or inactive event , the investigator has some different legal authorities to put into action, as well as some immediate responsibilities for the protection, collection, and preservation of evidence.
When attending the scene of any reported event, the investigator should assume that the event is active until it has been established to be inactive. In many cases, an event can be re-classified as an inactive event when it is determined that the suspect has left the scene of the event, or the event has concluded by the suspect being arrested. In cases where the suspect is still at the scene of an active event, the investigator needs to be thinking about the possibility of detaining the suspect or making an arrest of that suspect for an offence in progress.
To make that detention or arrest, the investigator should be thinking about what possible offence they are being called to investigate by the initial complaint, and also by the evidence they are seeing and hearing upon arrival. The classification of active event or inactive event is critical. It is a distinction that will guide an officer to determine what powers of detention, arrest, use of force, entry to property, and search may be relied upon to take action.
The defining elements between active event and inactive event are:. The critical elements of this Threat vs. In this incident, two armed teenagers went on a shooting spree in the high school killing 13 people and wounding 20 others before turning their weapons on themselves and committing suicide.
Officers responding to that call followed departmental protocols of that era. These protocols dictated they should wait for the arrival of their Emergency Response Team in events where armed suspect confrontations were taking place. The fact that these first responders waited despite ongoing killing taking place inside the high school led to a determination that police have a duty to take action in such cases, and waiting is not the correct response.
As a result of these determinations, active shooter response protocols were adopted across North America and police agencies re-trained their personnel to respond to active shooters with more immediate action and strategies to enter and confront the shooters in order to protect lives of possible victims. The Threat vs. Action Analysis Dilemma response protocols in the active shooter response situations now provide the standard or benchmark that a responding officer must consider when faced with the decision to enter a dangerous situation alone and take action, or to wait for back-up before entering to take action.
For active shooter situations, the protocols across North America are now prescribed responses, where responding officers are trained to enter and confront with minimal back-up. That said, not every potentially dangerous Threat vs. Action Analysis Dilemma is going to be an active shooter. Responding officers will often be faced with other calls where danger exists to the safety of persons and the decision to enter or wait for back-up must still be made.
In these cases, the responding officer must weigh the available information and respond or wait for back-up per their own threat vs risk assessment of the facts. The active shooter protocols have provided something of a calibration to this analysis where extreme ongoing threat to life and safety of person equals high duty and high expectation to take action. Police officers may be called to action by many different means. It may be a radio dispatch call to attend an emergency, a citizen flagging down the passing police car to report an incident, or an officer coming upon a crime in progress.
Whatever the means of being called to action, this is the first step of the police officer becoming engaged in a thinking process to gather and evaluate information, make decisions, and take action. The first step of this thinking process for the investigator is to make the evaluation and ask the questions:. As a subsequent part of this evaluation determining an Active Event or Inactive Event, the investigator should also be alert to the type crime being encountered.
For example, is it an assault, a robbery, or a theft? From the perspective of police tactical investigative response, an investigator confronted with an active event must first assess the threat level. Is there a danger to the life or safety of persons that would require a Level One Priority Result , taking immediate action to protect life and safety of persons, including the life and safety of attending police officers?
In assessing these threat levels to life and safety, police are often faced with very limited information. Sometimes there is only a possible threat, or an implied threat to the life or safety of persons. In such cases, it is only necessary for the police to suspect that there is a threat to the life or safety of a person to evoke the extended powers provided by exigent circumstances.
In these cases of implied threats, police are authorized to rely on the powers afforded by exigent circumstances to enter private property without a warrant and to detain and search suspects who may present a danger. These are significant powers and an investigator must be aware that if they use these powers, there is a strong possibility they will later be called upon to justify the exercise of those powers.
Let us consider that section of the Criminal Code that authorizes officers to enter a dwelling without a warrant, and then apply that understanding to some scenarios:. Authority to enter dwelling without warrant under the Criminal Code of Canada. Criminal Code, , s 1. Exigent circumstances 2 For the purposes of subsection 1 , exigent circumstances include circumstances in which the peace officer. Criminal Code, , s 2 a,b. A uniform patrol officer receives a call to attend a complaint through radio dispatch.
The caller is reporting that he has just witnessed his neighbour punch his wife in the front yard and then drag her forcibly into their house. The responding officer is immediately able to classify this event as an active event. Given this assessment, the situation requires a Tactical Investigative Response.
In this type of case, the officer can draw upon the extended powers under exigent circumstances to ensure the safety of the wife. Considering the information that has been reported, the officer may go to the residence with a view to using the necessary force to enter without a warrant to investigate the safety and well-being of the identified victim.
If, after entering the home, further investigation provides evidence to confirm an assault, the officer can arrest the identified suspect for that offence. In this scenario, the information that allows the classification of the active event and the offence recognition is fairly clear in the reported circumstances.
Sometimes an event cannot be immediately classified as either an active event or an inactive event. In these cases, where the information is less clear, the investigator may be justified to assume an ongoing danger to the life or safety of persons, and remain in the tactical investigative response mode utilizing the powers afforded under exigent circumstances to pursue the investigation until it is determined that an implied danger no longer exists.
For example, consider the situation where police dispatch receives a call from a woman crying. A patrol unit is dispatched to attend the residential address associated with the identified phone number. The attending officers advise the male that a terminated call from a crying woman was received from this address. The male states that there is nothing wrong in his home and he refuses to allow officers to enter the premises.
The officers advise the male that they need to enter the premises to satisfy themselves that there is no ongoing threat to the life or safety of the crying woman caller. The officers warn the man that they will be entering the premises and if he resists he will be arrested for obstructing a police officer. There are also more challenging situations, such as criminal acts or unethical behavior at work.
These will require an investigation, along with legal advice from a professional criminal lawyer. Knowing where to start can save you a lot of trial and error. Check out the following 8 tips that will help you learn how to investigate someone. Google is one of the most popular search engines that can be used to investigate someone. You can also use Boolean search logic techniques to get more specific results on your search.
Being an artist, writer, or musician may require a person to file for copyright on their work at some point. The United States Copyright Office has these documents available for search online. The Government of Canada offers a copyrights database that you can use to conduct your search. Most countries have some type of publicly available equivalent to these databases. The White Pages are another great tool you can use to investigate someone.
On whitepages. White Pages can reveal first and last names, cities associated with the name, and possibly an address.
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