CELLPHONE PHOTOS, REAL-LIFE RED HERRINGS, AND COURTHOUSE WAITING ROOMS - 089

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transcript:

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​This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, cell phone photos, real life, red herrings, and courthouse waiting rooms. I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Happy Mother's Day and welcome to episode number 89 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime related fiction. And this week I'm answering your questions about detectives using their cell phones to take evidentiary photographs, whether real life criminals leave red herrings and what do they call courthouse waiting rooms?

Big thank yous to my gold shield patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjamieson.com, Larry Keaton, Vickie Tharp of vickytharp.com, Chrysann, Larry Darter, Natalie Barelli of nataliebarelli.com, Craig Kingsman of craigkingsman.com, Lynn Vitale, Marco Carocari of marcocarocari.com and Robert Mendenhall of robertjmendenhall.com for their support along with my silver cufflink and coffee club patrons. You can find links to all of the Bureau's patrons in the show notes at writersdetective.com/89.

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​This month's Patreon deposit for May, 2020 just hit my account and 100% of that money has been donated to Masks For Docs to provide PPE to those on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have funds you'd like to donate to Masks For Docs or PPE, you'd like to get to those who need it most or you're a first responder or medical professional that's in immediate need of PPE, go to masksfordocs.com right now. And to learn more about patronage through Patreon, go to writersdetective.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

I hope you're having a great Mother's Day despite having to shelter in place and if you're feeling a bit out of touch, come join us in the Writer's Detective Facebook group. The fastest way to get to the group is by going to writersdetectivebureau.com/facebook and that will redirect you straight to the Facebook group. In fact, I pulled this week's first question right from there.

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​​Marcia Smart asked this in the Facebook group. "When executing a search warrant are the police usually the ones who take photos using their phones of things they find or do they need to bring along an official photographer from the department? Is that still necessary? This is for Chicago PD." While I'm not sure of Chicago PD's policy, I can tell you that the vast majority of the search warrants I've served did not involve the department photographer...                                                                                                                                                            Continue reading...