What do I do when I’m approaching a witness?
Witnesses need to be comfortable with us as investigators. We need to get witnesses comfortable enough to schedule with us and then open up to us later.
And so one of the things that we often tell people is, “Hi, my name is Natalie. I’m with Treaty Oak ELG. I’ve been asked to look into something that happened at the workplace. I did want to let you know that you’re not being accused of anything. I do need to get some information from you, but you’re not in trouble. Nobody thinks you did anything wrong. I just think you might’ve seen or heard some things that would be helpful to me and that’s what I need to spend some time talking to you about.”
So it’s that “seen or heard some things that would be helpful to me” piece that really gets people to be like, “Oh yeah, they just want to know what my eyeballs saw. Or, “They just want to know what my ears heard.” It really tones things down for people, and they tend to want to or be able to engage with us with a little bit more ease.
