Police Records Report and Fingerprints quandry

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Apr 15, 2016
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Hello, first post here.

My son has accepted an appointment to the USMA and we seem to be in a quandary. The local law enforcement offices here in California say they don't do police reports on minors. We are a military family, can this be done on base? Or have I just talked to the wrong people on the phone?

We also need to have his fingerprints done. Can the police on base do that? Again, the police off base say they don't do that for minors. Some say they don't do it for anyone, unless it's for booking or if they are applying for a job.

Not sure where to go from here.

Thanks!
 
Call the law enforcement agency and ask for the records supervisor. Private message me if you need more info
 
There should be a few different police agencies you could go to. Sheriff Dept, state police, city police. That is a fundamental service police agencies perform, and you shouldn't have an issue.
 
You could also check for private companies that are certified to perform those services. I had to use one in NJ when applying for a firearms ID card.
 
I walked in to the local police station asked the desk Sargent to sign the form and put his badge number on it

He thought it was stupid but he was former military and realized that didn't mean anything so he signed it and sent us on our way

USAFA has the better process, appointee signs a form authorizing the USAF to conduct a background check

Every police department, sheriff department, X department has their policy

We tried the just be nice and explain she had an appointment to the right guy at the right time of day.

As you know a real background check will be done after the SF86 is submitted

My opinion - if you have a clean background - anyone with a badge will do

Though I am not a fan of bureaucracy- those more STRACT than I can spend more cycles

Clearly if you have anything negative in your background the path we executed would be inappropriate and will come back to haunt you on the SF86
 
On base MP/SP's should be fine for fingerprints and local law enforcement checks if you have that available.

Local recruiters run these checks as well. A five minute trip/phone call to their office to find their point of contact might save you a lot of headache.

The difference between a check now and the SF86 is a check now can stop someone from coming in while the SF86 possibly means that the Army is stuck with someone who can't get a clearance and/or has to work on chaptering them out for something they never should have been admitted in the first place. Not all the security clearance background checks will be complete, let alone begin, before R-Day.

Customer wise, AF might seem like the better system, but do you really think they are doing their due diligence before they admit someone on R-day (actually conducting background checks) or as a taxpayer and a citizen with certain rights do you want to think of the added expense and intrusion that another federal government entity is now conducting or contracting investigations into private citizens?
 
I called the records office of the local police agency, and was told they don't fingerprint anyone not being booked or applying for a job. The Sheriff's department said they don't do minors. I called the local probation office and left a message, and not surprisingly they haven't bothered to return my call.

I guess the most important thing is getting the finger prints so he can start the "e-QIP" questions. Not sure exactly what they are. We live near a base, but when I called about getting him fingerprinted someone in security forces first said they don't do it, then transferred me to someone who might know. Unfortunately, nobody ever picked up.

I would have thought people in Law Enforcement, and the Military Police would be the first ones to help. For some reason it doesn't seem to be working out that way.
 
If you go to a recruiting station to get your fingerprints done, I recommend you to bring your social security number card and birth certificate. I went to get my fingerprints done without my social security number card and they refused to do it for me even though my SSN card was uploaded on my WP Portal and I showed it to them through there. I came back later with the SSN card and then they refused to do it again because I didn't have my birth certificate with me, even though my birth certificate was on my WP Portal and I could show it to them from there. I'm not sure if all recruiting stations operate in this manner, but I would just bring all that stuff just in case they do; it could save you a lot of time.
 
Unfortunately, like every profression, you'll find some more helpful than others. Sometimes the person answering the phone is just trying to forward your call or tell you we don't do that, but not interested in solving your problem. You're probably stuck until Monday. I'm in So Cal, I don't know what part of Calif you are in (please PM me with details). Sometimes you need to get beyond the person answering the phone to someone who might be more helpful.

I can't speak for military doing any of the things you need. In civilian law enforcement, Typically the records supervisor can complete and sign the records check for you. Depending how big/small the local agency, getting fingerprinted might be more of a challenge. You may get further going to the station and asking for the watch commander or duty sergeant, perhaps they can facilitate that for you. Many agencies only do it digitaaly now (called livescan) but those systems can't be uploaded to military databases, and can't print out the right cards. Many agencies have gotten away from rolling prints in ink unless it's for a major crime, and they might contract out to a larger agency for that.

Hang in there
 
On base MP/SP's should be fine for fingerprints and local law enforcement checks if you have that available.

Local recruiters run these checks as well. A five minute trip/phone call to their office to find their point of contact might save you a lot of headache.

The difference between a check now and the SF86 is a check now can stop someone from coming in while the SF86 possibly means that the Army is stuck with someone who can't get a clearance and/or has to work on chaptering them out for something they never should have been admitted in the first place. Not all the security clearance background checks will be complete, let alone begin, before R-Day.

Customer wise, AF might seem like the better system, but do you really think they are doing their due diligence before they admit someone on R-day (actually conducting background checks) or as a taxpayer and a citizen with certain rights do you want to think of the added expense and intrusion that another federal government entity is now conducting or contracting investigations into private citizens?

I guess they might just might want to be weeding out the obvious first. DUI's and other moving violations etc.
 
If you go to a recruiting station to get your fingerprints done, I recommend you to bring your social security number card and birth certificate. I went to get my fingerprints done without my social security number card and they refused to do it for me even though my SSN card was uploaded on my WP Portal and I showed it to them through there. I came back later with the SSN card and then they refused to do it again because I didn't have my birth certificate with me, even though my birth certificate was on my WP Portal and I could show it to them from there. I'm not sure if all recruiting stations operate in this manner, but I would just bring all that stuff just in case they do; it could save you a lot of time.

Good idea. We can get that stuff together and go down there. Do they normally have that equipment on site? Thx...
 
Unfortunately, like every profression, you'll find some more helpful than others. Sometimes the person answering the phone is just trying to forward your call or tell you we don't do that, but not interested in solving your problem. You're probably stuck until Monday. I'm in So Cal, I don't know what part of Calif you are in (please PM me with details). Sometimes you need to get beyond the person answering the phone to someone who might be more helpful.

I can't speak for military doing any of the things you need. In civilian law enforcement, Typically the records supervisor can complete and sign the records check for you. Depending how big/small the local agency, getting fingerprinted might be more of a challenge. You may get further going to the station and asking for the watch commander or duty sergeant, perhaps they can facilitate that for you. Many agencies only do it digitaaly now (called livescan) but those systems can't be uploaded to military databases, and can't print out the right cards. Many agencies have gotten away from rolling prints in ink unless it's for a major crime, and they might contract out to a larger agency for that.

Hang in there

Thanks for the encouragement. Most of the people on the phone were courteous, just weren't able to help us it seems. The police departments around CHP/Sheriff/Local here are really good people. I think the sticking point with helping us is with the fact that he's a minor. I might just try and go down there with the paperwork and see if they can at least do the quick background check, and then maybe go to the recruiter to get the fingerprinting done if I can't find someone to do it on the local base.

Thanks for the help. Just one more thing to do in that mile long list of things to do.
 
Thanks for the encouragement. Most of the people on the phone were courteous, just weren't able to help us it seems. The police departments around CHP/Sheriff/Local here are really good people. I think the sticking point with helping us is with the fact that he's a minor. I might just try and go down there with the paperwork and see if they can at least do the quick background check, and then maybe go to the recruiter to get the fingerprinting done if I can't find someone to do it on the local base.

Thanks for the help. Just one more thing to do in that mile long list of things to do.

Call ahead to the recruiting office. Tell them what you need. Our local recruiter was extremely helpful last year with the fingerprints.
 
We live in Chicago and all local LE agencies did away with ink cards many years ago. For DS (USCGA), we were able to utilize the CGIS office in Chicago and they were very accommodating. The interesting part is that the CG is part of DHS and DHS utilizes scanned fingerprinting technology.
 
We ran into this with our DS, too. He got the recruiting office to do the fingerprints and then he provided a form letter from our Law Enforcement stating they do not provide the background checks on minors and submitted that. All was good.
 
We ran into this with our DS, too. He got the recruiting office to do the fingerprints and then he provided a form letter from our Law Enforcement stating they do not provide the background checks on minors and submitted that. All was good.

Thanks for the tip. I'll call the local recruiting office and see what they can do. Hopefully they can provide us with at least a "clearance letter". I guess that's something that just tells them there are no warrants, or pending driving violations. I guess the finger prints are the most important because he can't start the security clearance questionnaire until it's done.

Thank you for all the help. I really appreciate it.
 
Our local law enforcement agency (town) also said that they don't provide police reports for minors. My son had been 18 for 2 days when we visited them. They have a stamp that explains their policy, and also stated that my son had a clean record for the 2 days
since his 18th birthday. Your agency probably has a way they can convey the same information to WP, I would think. BYW, WP accepted the police records that we provided to them.
 
I used the tips provided by some of the very helpful people here and called the local recruiter. They were happy to do the electronic fingerprinting. So far I am really impressed with the Army. Everything they have done so far has been professional and courteous.

The local law enforcement agencies couldn't provide a clearance for minors, but went to the Juvenile/Probation agency here and they gave me a letter stating he had no records with them. Hopefully this will be sufficient for the Academy. Another helpful parent here said it worked for her.

Thanks again for the help! Really great!
 
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