What is the relationship between an incident report and a criminal complaint?
Explanation
An incident report is the guard's or PPO's internal factual narrative of what occurred — observations, actions, identifications, evidence, and witnesses. The criminal complaint is a charging document filed by the District Attorney (or the People) in court, initiating a criminal case. The incident report and any police report it generates are evidence supporting the complaint and the DA's charging decision but are not themselves charges. Civil complaints are similar — filed by plaintiffs (typically by counsel) in superior court. A well-written incident report can be the foundation of both criminal prosecution and the merchant's civil defense, but neither is automatic from the report itself.
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