Life in North America, you call this an autopsy officer?!

...

Brian cautiously drove through the most chaotic blocks before slowing down and heading towards the Forensic Bureau.

Half an hour later.

A building resembling an old factory appeared before Brian's eyes.

This was the headquarters of the Forensic Bureau in Los Angeles.

The Forensic Bureau, officially known as the Los Angeles County Forensic Bureau, is the sole official forensic identification agency of the Los Angeles County government, responsible for death cases and forensic examination work in the entire Los Angeles County area (which includes 88 cities) and is the largest Forensic Bureau in the United States.

The Los Angeles County Forensic Bureau is a functional department under the county government, independent from police departments, investigative departments, courts, and other judicial agencies and is on equal footing with the police department.

However, there are not many employees here.

With five large departments combined, there are only a few hundred people.

Among them, there are a mere 23 front-line forensic doctors, all of whom have a heavy workload each day.

As for Brian.

He was just an inconspicuous little Carami in one of the five big departments of the Forensic Bureau.

After parking the car.

Brian greeted the night guard who was watching the midnight pay-per-view channel and headed straight to the autopsy room.

...

As the largest autopsy center in Los Angeles County.

There are two large autopsy rooms and one small autopsy room.

The large autopsy rooms can perform up to 11 autopsies simultaneously, mainly used for routine autopsies.

The small autopsy room can perform up to 3 autopsies simultaneously, mainly used for external body examinations and the autopsy of decayed bodies and bodies with infectious diseases.

Not all deceased require an autopsy.

There were 19,039 death cases in Los Angeles last year.

Excluding those death cases not suspected of criminal involvement.

The Forensic Bureau handled about 9,500 cases that required an autopsy last year.

Excluding rest days and holidays.

There were 20-40 autopsies performed here every day.

Which means.

Each forensic doctor had a workload of about one or two bodies per day.

Actually, if you set aside how disgusting the work content is.

The treatment here is quite good.

In fact, if nothing happens at night, the on-duty scene investigators can drive in the scene investigation vehicle and go home to sleep soundly around two o'clock in the morning.

If there is a scene case, they can simply drive over from home.

Obviously, Brian's colleague Tom was not having a good day today.

...

As soon as Brian reached the autopsy room,

He saw a tall and thin man with sunken cheeks wearing a work cap, tiredly leaning against the white corridor wall, smoking a cigarette.

"Buddy, you don't seem to be in a good mood."

Brian approached and greeted him.

The tall, slender man heard the noise, turned his head, and forced a smile on his unpleasant face, "Hey, Brian, you've arrived."

The man was Tom.

This guy was once a detective in the Detective Bureau; during one operation he was shot multiple times, and one bullet nearly pierced his throat.

Tom ultimately survived, but his body deteriorated, making him look like a junkie, and his voice became high-pitched and low.

Because of his changed physical appearance, Tom would often be stopped by patrol officers when he went out, which made him increasingly reclusive and disinclined to socialize. Only because he and Brian had some artistic interests in common did they become somewhat closer.

Tom took a cigarette out of his pocket, tossed it to Brian, and then rubbed his hollow eye sockets:

"Today's a bit of trouble.

There are two cases.

The victims were two women.

They were neighbors, with only a fence separating their homes, and they died around the same time, both killed by the same murderer in their own houses."

"Homicide?"

Brian understood the subtext in Tom's words.

Homicide cases are troublesome.

According to procedure, meticulous examination of the body is required based on the wounds.

In addition, they have to deal with demands and cooperation from the Detective Bureau, where any mistake entails responsibility and is often a thankless job.

This also leads to situations where,

Faced with such cases,

The Forensic Bureau employees delay producing results as much as possible, hoping that the police will solve the case, and then issue autopsy reports based on their outcomes to avoid responsibility.

For this reason,

The Detective Bureau is very discontented with the Forensic Bureau,

And has repeatedly proposed, imitating New York, to establish more 'crime scene investigation teams' to share the power of the Forensic Bureau.

Of course, such proposals that involve spending money without obvious benefits have always been ignored by those above.

Knowing it was two homicide cases,

Brian put on a pained expression.

This kind of autopsy assigns one body to one case number.

Every step of the process has to be handled by the same person, without casual changes.

Although Brian was not a real forensic doctor,

He was now in charge of temporarily taking care of these two bodies, and subsequent work would also be dealt with by him and the assigned forensic doctor.

Of course, the forensic doctor is only responsible for describing, recording, and drawing rough sketches of injuries and normal organs, as well as extracting relevant specimens of organs and blood.

As for tasks like autopsy, photographing, and other difficult labor,

These would be performed by Brian under the guidance of a forensic doctor.

The subsequent running around to different departments of the Forensic Bureau for transfers was also the responsibility of poor Brian.

The whole process was quite tedious.

...

Tom was also aware that he had put Brian in a difficult situation and showed a look of apology: "I heard there's going to be a new department formed soon, and they're really in need of experienced autopsy technicians; you might as well get familiar with the process for future opportunities."

Upon hearing this, a thought crossed Brian's mind.

A new department?

Could it be the 'crime scene investigation team' that Uncle Billy mentioned?

He lit a cigarette, pretending to be indifferent, and asked, "What new department?"