When the hero in a police movie or television show goes into an alley or checks a Dumpster, the Hollywood alley contains garbage bags stuffed with fluffy, dry wadded up newspapers. There are dry cardboard boxes to break the hero’s fall and maybe some clean tin cans or garbage can lids to allow the sound man to ply his trade.

What you won’t see is the reality of garbage and the sometimes less-glamorous aspects of police work. You won’t see wet, stinking, nasty garbage. The hero will not rise out of the Dumpster with eggshells, coffee grounds, fried chicken bones, maggots or hygiene products stuck to his person or wardrobe. More importantly, the Hollywood hero never gets poked with discarded needles or cut on broken glass or tin can lids.

One night, the undercover surveillance unit I worked in was tasked with searching several Dumpsters for packaging materials or other evidence discarded by a pair of suspected burglars. They lived in an apartment near the northernmost end of North State Street in Ann Arbor. This sort of mission is called a “trash pull.” The object of a “trash pull” is to search garbage for evidence that could potentially lead to obtaining a search warrant for a suspect’s residence.

There were four in our crew that night, but the most valuable was our champion police “Dumpster diver,” whose radio code name was “Sprocket.” Sprocket got his nickname when he made the mistake of wearing maroon long johns and a matching top to a UP deer camp. In his thermal underwear, Sprocket resembled a Mike Myers character that gyrated to techno music in a Saturday Night Live skit titled Sprockets.

Sprocket was the most dedicated police “Dumpster diver” in the unit. I was not. I am a bit more fastidious, perhaps a bit germaphobic, in my Dumpster searches. I preferred using a high tech “grabber” or low-tech broomstick with a nail on the end to manipulate and retrieve society’s detritus. When Sprocket physically jumped in the Dumpster, he loved to shock me and joke that he must, “Confront the beast!”

We started an hour or two after midnight to secretly search the trash — as well as four middle-aged men in a predominantly student populated area could. Sprocket was in the Dumpster, and two officers were checking trash bags handed out by Sprocket. I held a clipboard and flashlight to catalog the evidence we collected. I also monitored a police radio secreted in my jacket.

Sprocket had just located some loose tennis balls, a bent racket and a pair of softly used men’s tennis shoes soiled with coffee grounds. He checked the shoes and noticed they were his size. We chuckled that the tennis items provided us with what we in the business call a “clue.” The items must have been discarded by someone displeased with his game.

Dumpster diving is one of the least glamourous aspects of police work.

About this time, a man dressed in a black tuxedo — either a musician or a Mason, I deduced — walked by and asked what on earth we were doing. Where but Ann Arbor would a man in a tuxedo interrupt an undercover police Dumpster diving trash pull? With clipboard in hand, I informed him I was from the University of Michigan, and we were conducting a study in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency to assess the amount of recyclable or reusable items cast away in student housing areas. 

This tuxedo-clad interloper appeared skeptical. About this time in my earpiece, I heard police dispatch sending a patrol car to check out several suspicious men near a Dumpster, one of whom was wearing a tuxedo. That's a call you don’t get every day in a police car.

I wanted to get rid of this guy, so I asked Sprocket for one of the tennis balls that had been rolling around in the slime on the bottom of the Dumpster. I took the ball and bounced it a few times to demonstrate that the ball had plenty of life left in it and offered it to our well-dressed bystander who didn't want to touch the slimy ball (neither had I). Unfortunately, he didn't leave and continued to watch us.

The patrol car pulled up. The officer approached us and asked what was going on. I explained to the officer how my colleagues and I were trying to conduct research when we were interrupted. The officer — recognizing us and not wanting to ruin our undercover operation — played along and said, “Ahh yes professor, I have seen you around before.”

I thanked the kind officer and asked him to please vouch for us with our tuxedo-clad gawker so we might resume our “important research.” The officer convinced the well-dressed stranger that we were legitimate and suggested he move along. The musician or Mason took the hint and left us alone so we could finish our “research.” The officer grimaced at the smell of the garbage and left joking, “Better you than me fellas — enjoy.”

We finished our fruitless search. The suspected burglars were later arrested, but unfortunately it wasn't based on anything we found in the Dumpster.

The highlight of that mission came a week later. Sprocket sauntered into our office sporting the cleaned-up pair of tennis shoes he had found in the Dumpster. He proudly proclaimed to our crew, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!” Those discarded tennis shoes served him well for at least a season.

Lock it up, don’t leave it unattended, be aware and watch out for your neighbors.

Rich Kinsey is a retired Ann Arbor police detective sergeant who now blogs about crime and safety for AnnArbor.com.