New Haven Independent

The FBI put the body there — along with yellow crime-scene tape, a camera, string, and metal detectors.

The occasion? A local celebration Wednesday of the national crime-fighting agency’s 100th anniversary.

More than 400 current and former agents and their family and friends showed up for the celebration in the State Street headquarters lot. The lifeless body was part of a display of a crime scene, to show visitors how the FBI does its job.

“Is that an alien?” one visitor asked Special Agent Ivan Crespo (pictured), who was hosting the exhibit.

“Yes, an alien,” Crespo (pictured) admitted. “Wearing a bike helmet.” An alien who’s been shot.

Crespo pointed to the numbered cones that accompany evidence found on the scene, and the yellow “Crime Scene Do Not Enter” tape that keeps the public out. “The strings [attached to the body] are for the bullet trajectory,” he explained. “The chalk outline? We don’t use that anymore. We did that for the effect.”

A bonafide FBI artist’s sketch lay near the body, too.

Why the choice of purple paint for the blood on the corpse? “We didn’t want to scare the kids.”

Indeed, the feeling was festive in the lot, and under the tent where formal ceremonies got underway Wednesday. Connecticut Special Agent in Charge Kimberly K. Mertz spoke of how President Teddy Roosevelt formed the FBI on July 26, 1908. New Haven’s division was formed in 1940. It was headquartered at 205 Church St. then; it moved to 770 Chapel in 1971, to the Court Street federal building in 1978, and to its current home on the old New Haven Arena block in 2000.

For an agency with a hard-core image, the morning remarks were given not just by a female statewide agent in charge, but by a female governor, as well. M. Jodi Rell read a proclamation to the gathered FBI family and told them they “represent the pinnacle of law enforcement.” She also revealed a childhood story: She and her brother “always pretended to be the FBI agent in charge. It drove my parents crazy.”

Away from the microphone, there were still plenty of central-casting FBI males in shades.