To not report this?

[Divette]

One of the DCs has just come in from playing out saying, ‘look what I just found in a bush...what is it?’ and presented me with a knuckle duster.

OH says we should report it to the police in case it was used in an attack and discarded in the bush, and i’m earring on the side of it would be a waste of their time (it’s broken and muddy so will have been there a while I expect and anyway the DCs have handled it now).

Who’s right?

I would and have done handed shit in in the past. Something that seems nothing to us might be a jigsaw piece somewhere else. Where's the harm, just pop it in with the location of where it was found

Your DH is right.

As said, it might put a piece in the puzzle.

Are you at least going through why you don't move things like that with your DC's?

Drop it off at the local police station, if it's covered in mud etc they wouldn't be able to use it for forensics anyway (people watch too much CSI) and likelihood is it's not linked to anything but you don't know and that's the best place for it. Your DC knowing you took it to the police also shows them how dangerous these things are and how seriously they are taken.

I would take it in, I wouldn't phone them (that is a waste of time) but just put it in a ziplock back and write the date found and location on the front of it, job done.

Yes hand it in. Things like that don't end up in ditches accidentally. It may be a missing piece of a puzzle for something which could end up meaning the world to someone if it helps solve a crime. Or it might not, but it's no loss to you if it's the latter.