Some of the Top-10 laughs in my life have come at some of the worst possible moments. If you follow a cop closely, you would find that they laugh at the strangest things and often when others would be revolted.
If you did not understand the police sense of humor, you might find the jokes coarse, distasteful, sophomoric and at the very least ill-timed. Those jokes however serve a crucial purpose — they lower stress by relieving pressure and emotions and allow officers to perform some grizzly tasks without permanent psychological damage and nightmares.
One such laugh came at a homicide scene. We all had been ordered in from home around 7:30 pm one late fall or early winter night. When we arrived on scene patrol officers told us that a young wife had come home to find her front door ajar with her husband inside lying in a pool of blood, unresponsive. The young woman wisely had run from the apartment to a neighbor’s to call 911.
The poor woman’s husband was clearly dead and according to officers who had been in the apartment, the scene was a terrible and bloody mess. This was a result of the valiant fight the victim put up before he died.
We later pieced together the victim had been struck on the head with a wrench, choked with a computer cord, stabbed with a kitchen knife and yet continued to fight until finally succumbing after his throat was slit.
Coming onto the scene of a homicide, detectives are faced with a huge investigative undertaking, which depends on hundreds of minor tasks, all of which are crucial to be done in the proper order and fashion. An old crime scene adage goes, “Once a crime scene has been screwed-up, it can not be unscrewed.” For this reason, investigators have one possible shot at collecting all the evidence the scene might contain.
A detective sergeant’s job at the Ann Arbor Police Department is to see the big picture at such a scene and make sure all the little steps are broken down, assigned and completed.
The sergeant’s job is to first figure out if the scene can be entered without a search warrant. The next job is to enter the scene with a photographer or videographer and evaluate the level of complexity and level of expertise needed to process the scene. The photographer and videographer are there to memorialize the scene, before more cops enter and invariably and accidently alter the scene with their own movements.
It was go-time and we are heading into what was — at that time — the most violent and bloody scene I had ever encountered. Protective equipment is necessary when entering such a crime scene. In this case, at the very least, latex gloves and surgical booties would be necessary. These are used both as personal protection from blood borne pathogens and to protect the integrity of the crime scene—so investigators do not accidently track trace evidence from the outside into the crime scene.
We had a slight problem I judged would take about a half-hour to solve, with about a half-dozen people waiting around on overtime—you see public servants actually are more fiscally responsible than you might imagine. We had two pairs of feet going into the scene and suddenly only three surgical booties. With mine were already on my feet, as well as my partner and video man that evening, “Buzz,” was one short in the surgical footwear department.
“Well Buzz, HOPPING is probably not a viable option as it would adversely effect the quality of the video pictures—even WITH an image stabilizer on the camera,” I quipped in my Bill Murray in Caddyshack voice. This got a little chuckle between us—at a somber homicide scene you should not be seen laughing by the public because it looks like you are insensitive and making light of the situation, which you are not. You merely are trying to survive a sometimes horrifying career with your mental health intact.
Buzz volunteered to place a few latex gloves over his socked foot to complete the mission at hand. This was a very selfless, altruistic and innovative offer that loyal and dedicated old Buzz made, and I immediately took him up on it.
We maintained our composure while examining and videotaping the scene. Those video images saved the day for us in court many months down the road, when the killer was tried and convicted.
As we were finishing, I watched Buzz walk out to the crime scene van with that glove on his foot. The fingers protruded well out in front of his foot, so it looked like a huge chicken foot.
All I could think of was that Buzz looked like the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn walking through the barnyard humming Camptown Races and saying, “I say, I say now boy, didn’t I tell you to order some more booties!”
I shared this with another detective and then even “The Big Kahuna” —the Deputy Chief on the scene. I still don't know if it was nervous tension or timing but we lost it and were laughing so hard I was crying at the thought of Buzz walking with that goofy glove on his foot, in the middle of a grizzly homicide scene. We followed Buzz to the back of the van where he complained about how much the glove squeezed and cramped his foot. In my best Foghorn Leghorn impersonation, “I say, I say now boy, don’t you know a glove is not meant for a foot?”
We were in hysterics — even Buzz. It was so wrong, so out of place, so goofy, silly and perhaps taken out of context here — so stupid, but it was so perfect at the time. I’ll never forget it and I am pleased to report, I have never had nightmares about any of the things I have seen on the job, and I'm sure I owe it all to the great sense of humor and camaraderie of the cops I worked with.
Lock it up, don’t leave it unattended, be aware and watch out for your neighbors.