On a board I used to frequent, there was a poster who worked as a medical examiner. One of the things you quickly noticed about her, was her wickedly vicious sense of humor (think of the character House played by Hugh Laurie, only without the need to censor for prime time TV), which she admitted was a bit of a "safety mechanism" for the things that she had to deal with in her work.
Having known more than a few cops in my day, they also have a vicious sense of humor when dealing with such a situations. (One cop story that sticks out in my mind, is that of a rape victim who had her throat cut, and the cops immediately responding with OJ Simpson jokes when they saw the crime scene.)
This not to say that the folks are completely callous in their comments. They pay attention to the people around them, and censor themselves when people (or video cameras) who could be upset are around. They're also very curious about how things happened, and take a great deal of pride in tracking down the responsible parties. In the rape case I mentioned above, the victim not only survived, but refused to be taken away in the ambulance until she'd been allowed to write down the name of her attacker and give it to the police. The officer who was relating the story to me was in awe of the victim's stamina, and they immediately went after the attacker.
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