Surveillance, Interviewing, and Investigative Report Writing
Surveillance
Surveillance is a documentation exercise, not a chase. Before deployment: confirm the subject's identifiers (description, vehicle plate, addresses, schedule), select a lawful vantage point (public street, public lot, client-owned property), plan static versus mobile phases, brief a cover that does not impersonate law enforcement, and check fuel, camera time/date stamp, and batteries. Log start and stop times, location, weather, lighting, and every observation with a time. Negative results - subject did not leave the residence - are findings and must be recorded.
Legal traps: trespass onto private property; parking to block or harass; driving that becomes reckless or amounts to stalking; and electronic tracking of another person's vehicle without the owner's consent, which Tennessee prohibits with narrow exceptions. Placing a GPS unit on a vehicle neither you nor the client owns, without consent, is a classic exam trap.
Interviewing
Funnel the interview: rapport, free narrative (tell me everything, start at the beginning), open-ended probes, then closed confirmation questions. Cognitive techniques - context reinstatement, reverse-order recall - test memory without suggestion. Never lead, never feed details, never reveal evidence early. Separate witnesses before they compare notes. Deception cues are not proof; they prompt further questions. A private investigator is not a state actor, so Miranda does not apply - but threats, detention, and coercion create civil and criminal exposure and produce worthless statements. Record only where lawful; otherwise take contemporaneous notes and have the witness review and sign.
Reports
Write first person, past tense, chronological, factual: who, what, when, where, how, and who else knows. Separate observation from information received (I observed... versus the client stated...). Omit conclusions, adjectives, and speculation. Include a synopsis, a time-stamped body, and an exhibit list. Never rewrite a delivered report; issue a dated supplement.
Rule of thumb: if it is not in your notes with a time, it did not happen.