The Associated Press
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio (AP) - Garbage collectors here have been getting some help on their morning runs.
A detective with the Special Investigations Bureau of the Cleveland Heights Police Department pitches in beside the regular crew on some runs, identifying bags at homes where drug activity is suspected.
Defense lawyers and civil rights advocates are calling for an end to the practice.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled trash pulls to be constitutional, but not in all cases, said Gary Daniels of the American Civil Liberties Union in Cleveland.
“We’re always skeptical when the police say, ‘Trust us, we’re not abusing this power,’ ” Daniels said. “I’m pretty confident that a large number of Cleveland Heights residents would be horrified to know that taxpayer money is being spent so that police can rifle through their garbage on a regular basis.”
Detective Katherine Dolan testified in April that the unit does trash pulls at least three times a week, according to a transcript of an evidentiary suppression hearing.
“We go down the street just like the garbage men would, wearing a garbage outfit,” Dolan testified.
Most of the trash is thrown into the truck’s main bin and crushed with a compactor, Dolan said. But the targeted trash is set aside to be sifted through later.
The detectives are looking for probable cause to search the suspects’ homes and sufficient evidence to make an arrest, she said. Dolan said drug dealers and users often throw used drug paraphernalia in the trash.
Police Chief Martin Lentz defends the squad and downplays its duties.
“It’s not an every-morning thing,” Lentz said. “Trash pulls are a common tool used by our narcotics unit, but only during the course of an ongoing investigation.”
However, Lenz said the department will probably curtail the practice because recent publicity has served to warn criminals.
Defense lawyers Ian Friedman and Angelo Lonardo represent a Cleveland Heights couple arrested after Dolan found 10 bags of heroin in their trash.
The lawyers’ request for an acquittal on constitutional grounds failed when Judge Ann Mannen denied a motion to suppress the evidence.
But Friedman said getting the department to end the garbage pulls would be a victory.
“Otherwise, I suspect a lot of people will be going to Home Depot this weekend to buy trash-shredders,” he said.