ST. LOUIS—Repeatedly telling them they were interfering with his duties, forensic investigator Albert Correo reminded several police officers at a crime scene Tuesday to stop shooting at the dead body under a sheet. “Listen to me, I’m trying to fingerprint this person so we can identify them, but it’s pretty hard to do that when you keep emptying your pistols into the corpse—he’s already dead, okay?” said Correo to four officers taking turns firing rounds into the body under the bullet-ridden sheet, growing frustrated after he had finally convinced them to stop and a gust of wind picked the sheet off the corpse slightly, causing the police to begin shooting it again. “Come on, you guys, you’re messing up my blood spatter report. How many times do I have to tell you? Stop shooting dead people after the investigators have arrived on the scene, cordoned it off, and started gathering evidence for our report. There’s already going to be a bunch of paperwork because you gunned down an unarmed guy but at least your work is done—I can’t take photographs with bullets flying around everywhere.” At press time, the exasperated forensic investigator had decided to just come back in an hour when the officers were done.

Advertisement