Detective Scrawls Message in Victim's Blood

Crime-solver by day, offbeat artist by night? That's New Orleans homicide detective Charles Hoffacker, who last week scrawled a message at a murder scene—in the victim's blood, WWLTV reports. The department has decommissioned him (no uni, no gun, no street jobs) and launched an internal investigation, but Hoffacker's attorney is taking a stand. He says Hoffacker wrote the message long after the victim was removed, and was likely stressed out over a weekend of Memorial Day violence that saw four killed and 15 injured (Hoffacker was lead detective at the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old girl, the Times-Picayune reports, but no word on whether that's the crime scene in question, notes Huffington Post).

Andy Antippas, owner of Barrister's Gallery, defended the blood-scrawl as Hoffacker's way of coping: "On at least two occasions, he described crime scenes to me with such pathos, such personal anguish, that I remember distinctly on one of those times tears coming out of his eyes." The art Hoffacker has shown at Barrister's was political satire, though Hoffacker says he has no political bent and just makes art to decompress, the Times-Picayune reports. In a profession that tends to leave people depressed, he says, art "has helped me be more healthy." (More homicide stories.)