Subscribe to FeedAshworth Security Instructor Explains The Importance Of “Doing Your Own Footwork…”
Thanks to torley for permission to use this Photo.
Despite our high tech and connected online world, you still can’t beat actually going in person to courts and records offices to verify and gain information on a subject. Many county courts are placing public information online. You can often look up court cases by numbers, names, etc. However, you won’t get the details of the case or a verifiable background check.
For example:
I had to interview a listed “witness” about a criminal case. While looking up his information on the internet, I saw that he’d been a convicted felon! So, before visiting his home, I decided to take a look at the details and went directly to the courthouse to read about it all. Good thing I did! He was a rapist and potentially violent. That wasn’t on the internet, and neither was the information that he was once again in the county jail awaiting trial on another felony!
Needless to say, I interviewed him with bars in between us!
Another example:
To help a friend, I assisted her to see if a lien was removed from her property. She had received a letter from the company stating that they had removed it. When I did the footwork, I verified that indeed they had not! Despite a court order, yet! I also was able to verify that they had utilized liens to cause people problems and often to seize their property in order to resell it at a large profit! The liens were all illegal and had no base in fact. So, she now has a case with many examples to be able to take them to court and sue in a class action!
Always do the footwork and do not always depend on online sources. Online databases are to be used as tools to point you in a direction in an investigation. They are not as up-to-date as records you may find in person!
Terry Cochran, CPP
Ashworth Security Management/Services Instructor
