I'm in the middle of fictional thriller/crime story I'm writing. It is very rough, and very young as a project. I am a writing amateur but thoroughly enjoying myself as I learn. Before I continue with my question, I want to give a fair warning that the story does contain a few violent and graphic (at times) situations, one of which I have to partially describe below in my question. If that isn't your sort of thing, then don't scroll down! To make a long question as short as possible; a boy's mother is found dead in an alley, he is unaware to what has happened. He leaves his house to run to his friend's house to find his mother as she never woke him up in the morning for school, when on the way there he encounters a roped off crime scene in a city where this isn't normal. A police officer recognizes the boy and knows it's his mother that is dead. The police officer approaches him - what does he say? What is proper protocol? This kid is 15 years old so being blunt with him as you might be able to be with an adult is ruled out. How would police handle this situation? Thanks!
. Do you mean that the crime isn't normal, or roping off to protect the scene isn't normal? It's all normal - isn't it? You'll have to make an assumption that you can be direct with adults, and gentle with children. In the real world, that is not always the case. Unless there was some specialist officer to deal with the child in that sort of situation, then an officer on the street would deal with the child as any adult would. There you can deal with the situation as you think fit. Put your own stamp on it as the author.
Thanks for the advice. What I meant by it not being normal is this isn't a high crime place, seeing a roped off crime scene isn't something he'd seen before. He knows it has to do with his mother. I have a good idea of how I'd like to see it go I just want to make sure I stay realistic.
is this taking place in a first world country? if so, and since the officer knows the boy, first he would most likely contact the father or some other adult relative and have him/her give the boy the bad news... if there is no relative available, he'd only tell the boy that 'something' happened to his mom and call for a children's/social services person to come to the scene 'stat' so a responsible, caring person would be there to support the boy and take him away from the scene, after he's told of his mother's death...
Maia is right about how it's handled. That tends to be a standard way of dealing with the issue here at least.
