Making a False Police Report

Over the years, I have seen many good people walk down the wrong path and into the criminal justice system, because they didn't use good judgment and involved police in a personal dispute in an inappropriate situation. In many cases, a personal conflict exists between two people, tensions escalate, and each of them tries to retaliate against the other. I have seen many cases where someone will falsely accuse the other person of a crime in order to get the other person in trouble. The end result is generally that the accuser is charged with a crime of filing a false police report, and the accuser is the one who gets in trouble.

Domestic disputes are common in the world in which we live. Sometimes the conduct goes too far, such as physical domestic violence. Over the years, I have seen cases where one spouse will report non-existent abuse by the other, in order to get the other spouse "scolded" by police. Law enforcement officers are extremely careful with domestic violence allegations, and will generally err on the side of caution. Thus, if a wife wrongfully reports a physical incident, it is not uncommon for officers to arrest the other spouse. Later, when the wife tells police that she made up the story to get her husband's attention, it creates a number of problems: 1. the police need to determine if the wife is really a true "victim" or whether the initial report was a fabrication; 2. the husband may still be in custody, and police have to determine whether to continue to hold him or release him; 3. wife has made two reports now, and one of the reports is clearly untrue. Thus, there may be a situation, now, where both she and husband are charged with crimes because of the reports to police.

I have seen many cases where in domestic disputes, an accuser will call police because they think the police will scold their partner and go on their way. The opposite is true. In domestic abuse cases, officers are almost predisposed to take one person away, to avoid problems in the near future. Thus, it extremely important to understand the ramifications of involving police in a domestic dispute, as well as reporting information which is untrue.