Free We Are the Cops by Michael Matthews Page A

reddish, dark coloured stain that was dripping right through her ceiling and down her wall. So we went up into the attic and it turns out that there’s a homeless guy there who had somehow gotten access to her attic and he’s laying there, dead. His body had basically liquefied. I remember that his eyes were gone and it was like a horror movie - there were maggots crawling out of his eye sockets. And I remember his shirt – he still had his clothes on – he was on his back and his shirt looked like it was moving and it was because his entire body was nothing but maggots. So all of his clothes were just, you know, moving!
    I remember I had to help one of the body recovery people pick up his body and put him in a body bag. His scalp was still attached but as soon as we picked him up the scalp and everything fell right off. All his hair was laying there, just a pile of maggots. The smell up there was ungodly bad, just ungodly bad. I think I went outside and actually puked. And that’s what the stain was, leaking through her ceiling – it was his body. His body juices were leaking through her ceiling. They all freaked when they found out.
    I can’t believe no one had smelt that guy before. And there was virtually nothing left of him, so we never found out what had actually killed him. I’m sure it was probably natural causes – he was a homeless guy, there were beer cans all around him up in the attic – but he had been dead for weeks and it was hot. It was probably ninety-something degrees up in that attic. It was nasty.
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    I get called to all kinds of death investigations – suicides, natural death investigations, homicides – so I see dead people a lot. Now it’s a matter of routine. Initially when I started, yeah, it would make me sick, it would make me have nightmares. I’d see them in my sleep, I couldn’t get it out of my mind but it’s routine now, you get used to it. You get kind of callous, it’s just another dead body, you know?
    The thing that’s tough to remember, though, is that whoever that person is, they’ve got relatives. I mean, you can’t come walking into a scene and just go, ‘Ah, it’s just another dead guy.’
    You’re always being watched; somebody in that family’s watching you. His wife, his girlfriend, his kids – whoever it may be – they’re there, watching. And obviously that’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened in their life – to lose their father or brother or dad or grandpa or whoever it might be. Even if it was natural causes, our way of handling it is something that we have to be really careful about.
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    There was a suicide at the Stratosphere Tower here in Las Vegas, where this guy jumped off the top and I think it’s about 110 storeys high. On the video, it was about seven seconds from the time he jumps off until the time he hits the ground.
    We kind of have two types of suicidal persons: we have the ones that are dead set on doing it and nobody can stop them. Then we have ones that pretty much don’t want to do it but are screaming for help. This guy was the one that was going to do itno matter what.
    It kind of stands out to me as it was a very surreal experience. I was coming down Las Vegas Boulevard heading south and I was just about at the intersection of St Louis, which is one block from the Stratosphere. I remember the call came out that there was a person on top of the Stratosphere who was attempting to jump. It was a high priority call and I remember thinking that there’s no way I’m gonna be able to make it to the top of the Stratosphere in time to even talk to this guy. Just as I’m pulling up, I see a crowd and cars starting to move out of the way in front of me; there was just chaos. I saw people falling on the ground and I didn’t know what was going on. So I got my car up on the sidewalk, hit my lights and sirens and started rolling towards them and just as I’m pulling up, right in front of me was what was left of his body.