i was once one of those guys attending a scene with a dead body... 1) if it's a scene where a detective or forensics need to attend, then you're not really supposed to cover the body or intefere with the body at all until it's been photographed. defence lawyers will use absolutely anything to get their clients off. 2) logistic wise, most police vehicles don't carry anything to cover a body with. i used to buy space blankets and use that until one day I was crapped out by a detective in front of everybody, didn't do that again. 3) honestly you get so blase about the bodies that you don't really notice the fact that it's there. you wait patiently for detectives/photographer/mortuary vehicle, then write statements out, the body just sought of becomes part of the scenery. sounds terrible now but if we heard over the police radio that there was a traffic collision with fatalities, we'd all of a sudden been far too busy to attend the scene, to the point of driving out of radio range. also used to flip our shoulder badge thingies over (epilettes?) over and pretend not too see; and if the call came out at shift end, you can bet anything you like the body stays out there a long time because no one wants to get stuck with a dead body for 2 hours into the new shift.
