If you ever decide to commit suicide, you need to be aware that after you succeed, the police are going to be crawling through your house and going through all of your personal posessions, from your underwear drawer, to your computer files, to your refrigerator, to all of your mail--sent and unsent, opened and unopened.

I got to see what happens to a person after they decide to stick a gun in their mouth and pull the trigger. I was the first deputy on the scene (next-door neighbor had heard the shot and called 911), arriving mere seconds after EMS. But it didn't take them long to determine that they weren't going to be transporting the victim to the hospital. We were fairly certain that it was a suicide, but we still worked it as a possible homicide. It ended up being my scene, even though it was not in my zone. When my lieutenant arrived on scene she looked at me and said, "You want to work it?" And, since I've never worked a homicide before, I said, "Sure!" Slidell doesn't get a whole lot of homicides, so this was a terrific opportunity to learn all the various procedures.

Crime scene tape went up, first thing, and then I had to start a crime scene log, which is a list of everyone who crosses the tape and enters the crime scene. That included Fire Rescue, EMS, Deputies, Detectives, Coroner's office, and even the doofus Councilman who ducked under the tape because he wanted to find out why there were a gazillion cars with flashing lights on the street. He only stepped in a foot or two before we chased him out, but his name still went on the log.

After the tape went up, I had to record my initial observations of the scene and the body, and then I had to go interview the next-door neighbor. And then it was time to go through the house. Crime lab came out and starting taking pictures. Detectives poked through personal posessions, hoping to find a suicide note. We made note of unusual details, like the bags of groceries by the door, and the glass of fresca on the counter that still had ice in it, and the book downstairs that had certain phrases underlined in red ink. And as close an examination of the body that could be made without touching it. (Not due to squeamishness, but so as not to disturb the crime scene until it had been processed and photographed by the lab and the coroner's office.)

Interesting things happen to a person's face after they stick a gun in their mouth and pull the trigger. There's obviously a great deal of blood in and around the mouth, and even more blood around the back of the head. The eyes tend to puff out and swell, in an effect that the CO unit told me was called "Raccooning." When the bullet passes through the palate it sends pressure or fragments into the orbital cavities of the eyes, so the victim can end up with one or two black eyes, depending on the path the bullet took. And the blood doesn't pool, like you see in the movies. It tends to clot into large gelatinous clumps within the initial spread of blood (which can get quite large), especially when it's really hot out. I thought that the clumps were brain matter at first--they're that solid.

And no, there's no chalk outline drawn on the ground. In fact, as soon as we were done processing the scene and the CO units had bagged up the body, we got a hose and some bleach and tried to wash off as much of the blood and gook off of the patio as possible. No sense leaving it there for the next of kin to find.

At shift change that evening, a couple of the other deputies expressed their frustration that they hadn't been able to get to the scene to see it. I knew how they felt, because I felt really lucky that I'd been there and been allowed to work it. I mean, how often do you get the chance to do a dry run on a homicide investigation?

Friday I got the chance to be a bad guy for the current Academy class's Simmunitions and Redman exercises. It's a lot more fun (and a lot less stressful) to be the bad guy, but it's still a learning experience. We did Simmunitions in the morning, and I played in the vehicle stop scenarios. I got to shoot at lots of people and get shot, and then play dead on the ground and then shoot people some more when they didn't approach tactically. That was fun except for the playing dead part. It was three zillion degrees outside, and I was wearing jeans, vest, long sleeved shirt, gloves, and protective head gear. When I got shot the first time, I stupidly fell where I got shot--which was on the gravel road. The exceedingly hot gravel road. I thought I was going to die before the trainees got to me. In the next scenario when I got shot, I managed to stagger a bit and fall onto the grass. A bit cooler, though not much. Finally, on the next run-through, the driver of the car--my partner in crime--and I decided that we were going to pull off of the road a couple of hundred feet and stop in the one piece of shade that was present in our vicinity. Confused the hell out of the trainees when we pulled off the road, but they gamely followed us, lights and sirens going full blast. So that time, when I played dead, I got to do it on the grass in shade. And, of course, I was only mostly dead, so when the trainee came up to me without utilizing cover, I turned over and shot him. Heh. Hehe.

In the afternoon we did Redman, and I got to fight in three different scenarios. The first one I fought in I ended up participating more than had been anticipated, i.e. I was only partially padded up, and ended up with a rather Significant Bruise on my thigh. Still though, one of the trainees gave me a terrific compliment when he looked at me after my first fight and said, "Damn... You punch like a guy!" Heh. Second fight was really a chance for me to catch my breath, because I got to play a pregnant woman who was protesting in front of an abortion clinic. (That kind of scenario makes the trainees think about their utilization of force.) But the next one was a basic barfight whoopass scenario, and once again I got the respect of the trainees when I wore out the guy who was trying to grapple with me.

Nice to know I still have it. But damn I was sore the next day. Owie. My body reminded me that I turn 34 this year.

In other news, Mom ordered the latest Harry Potter book, and then was cool enough to let me read it first. It was, of course, delightful and captivating. The author's writing keeps getting better and better, and this novel has an well-tuned plot that keeps the reader wanting more. I also think it's absolutely marvelous to see kids lining up in droves, eagerly awaiting a book. Who says print is dead? Hah! I was also pleasantly surprised to see that at the local Walmart, right next to the display of Harry Potter books, some clever and well-read soul had placed a display of Tolkien! What a terrific way to draw people into reading more SF/F! I hope that regular bookstores start doing something similar. There are a lot of kids who, after reading Harry Potter, are looking for another book that can give them a similar kind of escapism.

And finally, I went to see X-Men on Saturday. I gave in and went by myself (even though I detest going to movies by myself), but I still enjoyed myself. Good movie, nicely done, nice effects, great casting, and a decent plot. Worth seeing.