Date: Fri 05-Feb-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

Citizens-police-academy-Kehoe

Full Text:

Police Work Is Sometimes Just A Matter Of Listening Carefully

(with photo)

BY ANDREW GOROSKO

"Not everybody tells the truth to the police. Sometimes they lie. Sometimes

they leave out information," police Sergeant Michael Kehoe told a group of

about 20 residents at the police department's Advanced Citizens Police

Academy.

Police designed the informational program to provide more depth and detail on

the nature of police work to residents who already have participated in the

department's basic Citizens Police Academy program. The eight-session advanced

course is intended to provide an overview of law enforcement issues to

participants, not train them to become police officers.

On January 28 Sgt Kehoe described how police officers gather information used

in the course of criminal investigations, explaining that there is a variety

of means available to collect information required to solve crimes.

Technical means include DNA testing, fingerprint checks, metallurgy,

microscopy, spectral analysis, X-rays, wiretaps and voice analysis, among

other methods.

But evidence technology notwithstanding, the most valuable investigative tools

involve conducting interviews of witnesses and interrogations of suspects, Sgt

Kehoe said. Using such techniques will lead to almost all solved cases, he

said. The results of interviews and interrogations are combined with evidence

collection, records checks, and surveillance to solve criminal cases, he said.

"You're going to be asking the `who,' the `what,' the `where,' the `how,' the

`why,'" he said in describing the rudiments of interviewing witnesses and

suspects.

"Those people do not have to talk to you... Nothing compels them to talk to

you," Sgt Kehoe said, explaining that before questioning someone, police tell

them they have the right to remain silent and that anything they say can used

against them in a prosecution.

Before becoming a sergeant, Kehoe served as the police department's youth

officer for many years. In that capacity, he investigated sex crimes involving

youths.

That meant interviewing youths who claimed they were the victims of sex crimes

and also interviewing and sometimes interrogating the adults who allegedly

committed those crimes against the youths.

"Interviewing pedophiles is not a pleasant experience, but it's necessary if

crimes are to be investigated and solved," Sgt Kehoe said.

To do a thorough job, the investigator must emotionally distance himself from

the crime under investigation, the sergeant said.

The best chance for a conviction in a criminal investigations rides on the

results of an interview, he noted.

To gauge the importance of what someone tells an investigator in an interview,

investigatory groundwork is necessary.

"It's real important that you get a lot of (background) information about the

people you're interviewing," Sgt Kehoe said.

"A good investigator listens... Usually you can tell [when suspects] are

lying," he said.

The deft use of background information placed within the context of an

interview or interrogation is the key to solving many criminal cases, he said.

Investigators hone their craft by developing their skills through experience,

he said.

Exercise

To demonstrate some techniques used in investigating crimes, Sgt Kehoe

conducted an exercise for participants at the January 28 session.

In that exercise, a large man briskly walked into the meeting room with his

right hand firmly thrust in a jacket pocket and demanded that Sgt Kehoe hand

over his wallet or be injured unless he did so. The sergeant gave the man the

wallet without opposition. The assailant then quickly left the room placing

the stolen wallet in his left jacket pocket.

One third of the police academy participants were in the room when the staged

robbery occurred.

It then became their task to relate the details of the incident to the others

who were out of the room when it took place. From the witnesses' accounts, the

others compiled formal statements describing the crime, just as police

investigators would take statements from the victims of crimes.

After comparing the various statements, participants were surprised to learn

the amount of variation in the content of the statements.

Details varied on the specifics of what happened in the staged incident and

the description of the assailant.

Sgt Kehoe then told participants that patrol officer John Cole had acted as

the street tough in the mock robbery.

"It's not that easy," Sgt Kehoe said. Obtaining accurate information from

witnesses to a crime is not as simple as it might appear at first glance, he

continued.

Sgt Kehoe said that one basic way to gain investigatory information is to

simply ask witnesses what happened and then just let them talk, sometimes at

length, to describe what they saw.

The session on interviewing is one of eight components in the Advanced

Citizens Police Academy program. The course also addresses topics including

motor vehicle accident investigation and reconstruction, high-risk motor

vehicle stops, weapons training and safety, arson investigations, long-term

investigations, self-defense and baton training, and motor vehicle pursuits.