Thursday, September 24, 2009

Documents for Life

J.D Callaway, the Director of Communications at the Hillsborough Sheriffs office, spoke about several documents to the public affairs reporting students. He discussed several documents including: News Releases, Standard Operating Procedure documents, Florida Traffic Crash Reports, Individuals Charge Reports, Criminal Report Affidavits, Face Sheets, and DUI Reports.


I found that the most interesting document out of all of them is the Criminal Report Affidavit. Once a criminal has a report written in detail about an incident that had their involvement, that detailed account can be exposed for the public to see and read. I feel as a reporter, all of these public record forms can be useful to ones story. However, this particular document really caught my eye.

Callaway explains the Criminal Report Affidavit, or also known as the CRA, as being "a very substantial document, if a police officer is laying down the foundation for a probable cause [case], that will be detailed in this document."



He continues to explain that on the back of the CRA there is a section that allows the officer to give a detailed report of the facts. Also, many reporters use that information as a base for their story and can obtain there lead from the information provided.



Since I was interested in this particular document, I wanted to know more about it. I did some research on the Internet and found several web-sites that answered some of my questions.

One web-site that I found gave me several choices to obtain public records including the background information of any person. This particular search engine allowed me to find criminal reports.

This website is "The Unofficial Public Resource of the American Safety Council for Florida Residents and Visitors."


Also, if you would like to check out another affidavit, go to http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/chldmrdr/flaonstott41705arrst.html


In April of 2005, David Onstott had murder charges brought against him. He was the the former boyfriend of the mother of slain 13-year-old Florida girl Sarah Michelle Lunde. It is interesting to see a real affidavit!
Onstott did receive life in prison.

In conclusion, the Criminal Report Affidavit was just one of the many documents that Callaway spoke of but all of the documents that he mentioned can be used to help a good reporter write a great story.

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