Tuesday, July 26, 2011

INTERROGATION 102

What is the chief skill necessary to be a good interrogator?  First and foremost, you have to have confidence in yourself.  If you have a method that you learned and studied, then go into that interrogation room believing that you’re going to go in there and get a suspect to cop out.  Don’t let the severity of the crime scare you.  What’s the difference between a petty theft and a triple murder when it comes to an interrogation?  Nothing other than the latter has two more pieces of evidence (the murder victims).  Some investigators get spooked if it’s a serious crime, or if it’s taped and/or video recorded.  If you have a good method that you’ve worked on, it doesn’t matter.  The technique is always the same, no matter how minor or how serious the crime.  After I became comfortable with the book method I chose, I didn’t care if they had me doing it on national television with a full crowd in the Los Angeles Coliseum.  One time I had a young detective trainee listen in from another room in the police station while I interviewed a parolee on a case.  After I got him to cop out to the crime, I went and spoke with my trainee about it.  He told me that he had tape recorded it so he could listen to it again and learn from it.  When I advised him that we would have to turn over the tape to the District Attorney’s office and the Suspect’s lawyer, he was embarrassed and apologetic.  I told him not to worry, because the method I used every time I interrogated was well within the guidelines of the US Constitution.  So go in there and get em, tiger!  

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