What should i do in this situation?

A week or two ago I found online and applied for a series of forensics jobs in Pittsburgh (I live in Columbus OH). I have wanted to get into forensics for a while, and graduated college with a degree in Chemistry and a minor in Criminology. Upon graduation I found that my lack of experience and choice to stay in Columbus for at least a year found me no Forensics jobs, so I opted to go to a basic analytical lab where I’ve worked for the last 13 months.

Well I applied to those jobs, taking caution to get the best references I could and such, and directing it to a specific HR persons desk (its a county job, so they have an HR dept. for the entire county). Well I followed up with the HR person today, and the gist of what I got is that they do open acceptance of applications for all of the positions I applied for, so that when they do need one they have a pool to pull from. Needless to say I was disappointed.

Well long story short, I want one of those jobs, badly. I want to get into forensics and I want to get out of Columbus. So the idea has occurred to me that maybe I could e-mail/call/whatever the head Forensics person directly. My current idea is that I would explain the situation to him, tell him I’m dying to get into forensics and really would like to join his group, and ask if maybe we could work out an internship, or even volunteer work (which I would do in a heart beat).

Do you think contacting the guy directly is a good or bad idea? If you did it and you were in my position, how would you ask him about a position, what would you ask him for, etc?

Suggestions please?