too much typing—since 2003

7.18.2008

advanced point-missing, pt. 3,761

Some years ago I read an article somewhere on a company whose specialization it was to clean up after grisly, violent crime scenes. I hadn't really thought of it before - but I suppose not only is there unfortunately a market for such services, it would seem to require certain kinds of specialization other than just watching Pulp Fiction too many times.

So I wasn't that surprised when, a few blocks from our house, I saw a van parked with signage painted on it indicating it belonged to such a company. The irony lies in the text of the signage, which claimed that the company's task was to help "overcome the trauma of violent death" or similar phrasing by recuperating the physical crime scene.

Okay...but did anyone stop to think that survivors of a violent crime, or suicide, etc., might not want to have such a vehicle parked outside their house thereby advertising (to passing bloggers, say) that such an event had affected their household? I don't think most such people want to put up a billboard advertising their pain; it seems ironically insensitive of this company not to recognize that.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Ugh, harsh. Did you figure out what happened?

2fs said...

No. Not really a gawker, so I haven't tried googling it or anything. Several years ago, the woman in the family who lived next door at the time killed herself...or so we gathered, from the police and coroner presence, and from the lack of any particular other attention paid by same to her husband (in other words, he was cleared, probably pretty quickly, of any involvement). They moved shortly thereafter. Sad, and weird: she was a very quiet woman, but we didn't know she was (we're assuming) depressed. But we weren't in a position to know - we weren't close at all to them, just the occasional conversation over the hedge.