[LAPD DB] Interrogation

Chapter 3
Interrogation Methods



A confession is the only weapon against a criminal that guarantees conviction. On the other side, getting a confession not as easy as it seems, especially a confession that is legitimate and properly obtained. This confession must obtained legally, so it its not halted by the request of the defendants lawyer or questioned by Internal Affairs. Some techniques that are used through the department;

People may argue there are a million different ways to interrogate a suspect. And to assume that would be correct, but how should we interrogate people as an LSPD Detective? Well; firstly, there are many ways of interrogating somebody as a LSPD Detective, but all of them must involve non-lethal or non-brutal tactics. You are not allowed to go around beating up the people you are interrogating, because that is unlawful use of force, and if caught, could just well lead to the termination of your police career. Any unlawful lethal force will be dealt with seriously, especially if used in the interrogation room will be retrievable.

Where is the interrogation room?
The interrogation room is located inside the LSPD, it is just opposite the locker room and up on the eastern side of the building.

In this room you will find a small table with two chairs. This is a plain room as this makes it intimidating and obviously makes the suspect feel powerless. This room will be used for criminal interrogations only. Remember, there are active surveillance cameras in this room with audio recording, so everything done inside the interrogation room will be recorded.


What types of questions should I be asking?

The types of questions you ask are dependent on what sort of crime you are investigating. For example, if your suspect was just busted in possession of a load of narcotics, you will be asking general narcotics questions such as
“Tell me how to prepare this weed for inhalation/ingestion.” Or if they are busted in possession of a bunch of firearms you will ask them“So, what chamber does my Beretta 92F have?” Then you move from general knowledge slowly onto personal questions. “How did you get the drugs?” “What did you plan to do with them?” You will in an interrogation bombard them with questions about how, where, why, who and what. You will seek to get any information about the suspect, about the narcotics, weapons, vehicles; etc. If you are asking questions about an organisation, you will ask general questions. “What does the business do?” “Who’s your manager?” “Who performs the recruitment drives for the café?” then you move onto more stimulating questions such as “So, did you know that they were as they term is “whacking” guys in the basement?” “Why were you there then?” “Who do you work for?” “Why didn’t you tell us?” You bombard them with these questions to scare them. It’s useful as-well, before you interrogate somebody to gain a lot of information about them. This ensures that you can scare them by saying things about them to this person. Finding out their name before an interrogation is a very good tactic; it scares them and makes them think that you know a lot about them and will also make them believe that lying to you is useless.


Interrogation Techniques

When pursuing an interrogation, you will discover that there is more to it than just throwing a bunch of questions at a guy. So, now you know what types of questions to ask, let’s go over how you go about asking these questions. Before I go about talking about how we extract information, how about we cover some ground rules about an interrogation.


1. Any violence of ANY kind is not permitted in the interrogation room unless it’s lawful. Lawful violence is only used when the suspect tries to beat up one of the officers in the room and you have to subdue him. Police Tactics will be used there.

2. No criminal threats. We will not threaten to kill his wife if he doesn’t tell us anything or anything of the sort. This is not permitted.

3. No use of torture. This includes psychological torture as well as physical. No tools or torture tactics are permitted.

4. No interrogations without an active case-file or police report with a warrant issued. You cannot just arrest a random suspect and begin to put him through an interrogation. The Special Operations Bureau Commander or a member of the High Command can authorize an interrogation if no arrest warrant has been issued.


And to clarify, if there is a Case File on an organisation and a person is a member you may interrogate them for the purpose of finding about the organisation. Any random suspects need a warrant or authorization though.


There are several ways of going about an interrogation, along with several “tactics” As long as these tactics follow the four golden rules set out in this section of my handbook, then any tactic is welcome to be used.
I will be outlining one basic tactic for you guys to use, and that’s called the “Good Cop, Bad Cop” routine. It’s a basic tactic that requires 2 Detectives. One detective will play the role of the “nice, friendly” cop and the other detective plays the “angry, mean” cop. This technique does not involve violence and is 100% legal and approved for use.


The good cop will begin by talking to the suspect; he will ask him a few questions in a friendly manner. Won’t be intimidating and appear to be his friend. All this time the bad cop will be in the background, he will be silent, not speaking, not doing anything. If the suspect complies, then the bad cop will not need to be used, and the good cop can get all of the information out of the suspect. If the suspect is forthcoming, the bad cop steps in and says “I will be checking your words, if I find out you’re lying, you’re going in for a long time.” This will be a tactic to scare the interrogation suspect into being clean with the detectives, telling them the correct information.

If the suspect is not forthcoming in the “Good Cop” part of this, here’s where the real power play comes in. The good cop will step back, and the bad cop will come in. The bad cop will say things like “Tell us or we throw you in jail for a long time buddy” or, “If you don’t tell us, I’m going to pay a visit to all your friends, and everything I know about them I’ll tell them, and then I’ll say that you told us” This will be to scare the suspect into thinking that the cops will ruin all of his street reputation. Then the suspect should give out some more information, but if he fails, the good cop will “order” the bad cop to step back, and come in, offering to lessen the suspects prison sentence if he is forthcoming, telling him some charges may be dropped, and they won’t charge him for obstruction of justice if he just tells them. NOTE: You cannot lessen his time OR fail to charge him for any charges that happened prior to his arrest. You may however let the obstruction to justice whilst in the interrogation room slip as it’s under your jurisdiction. Any charges given PRIOR to the interrogation cannot be lifted or lessened unless you feel you’ve uncovered evidence to lift or lessen a charge. Editing charges in an unrighteous manner can get you discharged. You will repeat this routine using any creative words or tactics you can come up with that follow the four golden rules in order to obtain information from the suspects.


A second tactic is a basic power-lie technique. This technique involves one detective and will be used on a suspect who has one or more accomplices. When you've learned the name of two guys, who are connected to the same crime, you will in an interrogation with one of them bring up the other one’s name. You will then tell them that suspect B has given a lot of information on them, and that it’s their way of dealing with a problem, and suspect A is the problem. Therefore, you tell suspect A that suspect B has told them all about suspect A, in order to get rid of him. You will then say that if suspect A tell him all about suspect B, then suspect B’s story will be discredited and suspect A will get off of the hook on what suspect B has told them. This hopefully should allow suspect A to be more forthcoming with the information and tell them everything to get suspect B put down. This tactic can be repeated across suspects as long as they don’t get time to be told by the other suspect that it has happened.

Other Techniques

1) Direct Confrontation: The interrogator provides the evidence the led to the suspects arrest, then offers the suspect an early opportunity to confess for possibly immunity or lowered charges.

2) Dominance: The interrogator provides various scenarios to demonstrate how the crime occurred, in a fast manor to prevent the suspect from responding - this gives the suspect little or no chance to deny guilt. When people are confronted with question quickly to respond to, their brain is forced to give them the events that occurred, unless they have been learning to lie.

3) Deflection; If the suspect does not immediately confess, the interrogator suggests some reason for the suspects actions to support them with some moral justification for his/her actions. This is called developing a theme which may chance over the course of the interrogation depending on how the suspect responds.

4) Turning Objections into Justifications. At this point, the suspect will give some character-based reason why he/she could not have committed the crime (“I hate violence!”), which a trained interrogator can then twist into an acceptable excuse for why the suspect did what he/she is accused of (“So you really didn’t want to kill him, did you?”)

5) Expressing Empathy; The interrogator continues to express empathy for the suspect, suggesting that he/she would have reacted just like the suspect did under similar circumstances. Again, the idea is to offer the suspect an opportunity to justify the crime within some socially acceptable framework.

6) Offering Alternative Themes; Often, at this point in the interrogation, the suspect becomes quiet and submissive. The interrogator should now offer a number of alternative “themes” or scenarios—along with possible motives—and observe which gets the most response from the suspect.

7) Posing the “Alternative Question;” Once a likely scenario has been established, the interrogator offers two scenarios, the major difference being that one has a more socially acceptable motive than the other. (e.g., “You hated her,” vs. “She gave you no choice.”) At this point, the suspect will usually select the “safer” option, but either way, guilt has been admitted.
Repetition. The interrogator has the suspect repeat the confession in front of one or more new witnesses, such as other police officers.