The two men weren’t dressed like criminals. They weren’t hiding their identity. They were acting like two men on the home stretch of a junk removal job. The men used shovels to hoist the last of a residential space into the open desert. Garbage bags were flung from the truck with total disregard. A couch frame rested on top.

An open field behind Volkswagen became a receptacle. A passing witness caught what looked like illegal dumping and confronted the two men, camera rolling.

“Are you thinking of just leaving all this shit there,” asked 30-year-old Saddleback Farms resident James Gerhardt, with his cell phone recording the interaction. 

The man on the truck responds that he’s building a burn pile with the debris. 

“You’re going to burn it? Are you going to burn the whole field down, too?”

The two men have not yet been identified. One was bald, the other wore dreadlocks. They smiled and waved at the man with the camera. 

Gerhardt said he had never called the cops before in his life — until Monday. This was the first. 

Later, officers found the men at a Circle K, said Gerhardt. Police did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The community, especially Hidden Valley residents who have long grappled with anonymous dumpsites cluttering up the pristine desert landscape, responded with the righteous disgust.

Residents in that rural neighborhood have spent months hauling trash themselves, pre-stacking tires ahead of county cleanup days, and documenting chronic dump sites along rural roads. Some have confronted suspected dumpers directly after finding discarded mail in the debris. In several cases, public pressure, and public shaming, has led to dump sites disappearing overnight.

Commenters under Gerhardt’s video quickly speculated the men were cheap junk haulers, paid to make trash disappear, not to care where it went. Legitimate haulers weighed in, pointing out how inexpensive legal disposal actually is.

Watch the heated confrontation for yourself: