[WhiteTiger]

I wrote a quick note explaining police reports a bit for someone somewhere else. Figured I'd share it here, too:

When you see this on the bottom of a police post "Case #19418282/3940" it's both the case number, and the badge number of the primary investigator. So the case would be 19418282 and the badge number is the 3940. If you are curious, this is the case/badge for the Arson currently up on CPS FB page.

You can phone non emerg, and give us the info (with/out your name/info if you do/don't want to be contacted) and we'll email the primary or you can email the primary yourself if you want. All CPS work emails are "pol(badge)@calgarypolice.ca. So to email the primary about that Arson, you'd email pol3940 @calgarypolice.ca. Easy peasy.

When you call, you can ask all you want, but we won't tell you anything about the case, who's involved or anything like that, even if the case is about you! We can't provide any of that info over the phone. The only information about a case we can provide over the phone is the Primary Investigator, and their contact info.

If you are involved in a police case (most usually, a traffic collision) you can go and get a single copy from a District Office. You just have to present yourself with ID and ask. Otherwise, you are going through FOIP to get a copy.

Police reports are called mainly 3 different things in Calgary. Cases, Events or Calls. So if you are asked for your 'event number' for instance, they are looking for the case number.

Oh, and a bit of trivia. To decode a Case number, you can just look at it. They are always 8 digits long (if you only get 4, be sure to ask for the other 4, some folks only give out the last 4, for some reason). The first 2 digits are the year. The rest are just a sequential number that started at 000001 on New Years Eve.

When I left work this morning, we were around 20115612. So, basically, the 115612th case/event/call of 2020.