AUGUSTA – As boys, State Police Detectives Mark Lopez and Herb Leighton thrived on television shows like “Adam 12,” “Cannon,” “Baretta” and “TJ Hooker.”

They wanted to be police officers. They wanted to help catch the bad guys.

Now they do, in a roundabout way, as members of a specialized forensic science unit of the Maine State Police – the Evidence Response Team.

But neither will be watching the fifth-season opener Thursday, Sept. 23, of the team’s fictional television counterpart, “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

“My family doesn’t let me watch it with them, because I tell them, That’s not how it’s done,'” said Leighton, the team’s overall leader and its bloodstain-pattern analysis expert.

People can watch CSI “with the knowledge that it is probably the most accurate fictional program in terms of general concepts, principles and techniques.

“Where it falls short – and drives investigators nuts – is when they get specific,” he said.

Lopez said the CSI show dramatizes the extremes of forensic cases.

“Some of the stuff they’re coming up with does not occur within a crime, and if it did, our scientific specialties could not solve it in the way they do,” said Lopez, a senior member and supervisor of the nearly 3-year-old response team.

Maine’s Evidence Response Team gathers evidence of what happened at a scene, whether it’s a homicide, suicide, burglary or traffic wreck.

They document it, package it, store it and take it to the crime lab, where the evidence is analyzed, then given to investigators.

Lopez has been processing homicide crime scenes in Maine since 1994 and general crime scenes for 17 years. Leighton became a detective in 1995.

The themes

But the Evidence Response Team and CSI share something, according to the detectives: Both use catchy music lyrics as their theme.

“CSI has, Who Are You?’ from The Who,” and we have, I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime,’ from Joe Walsh,” Lopez said. He has appropriated the Walsh lyrics for a team T-shirt.

Brandi Caron, a forensic chemist at the state crime lab in Augusta, said she enjoys the show.

“I find it amusing. If only (the work) were that simple.”

Things go so smoothly on the show, she said. “Nothing ever locks up on CSI. They never run out of liquid nitrogen, and you never see people on CSI gag,” said Caron, who also doubles as the team’s senior lab adviser.

Crime lab Director Elliot Kollman is also the team’s administrator. He said the show glamorizes forensic science, but does create a misconception with its quick turnarounds.

And although the Maine team shares certain aspects of the show, Caron said real forensic scientists never interrogate suspects.

“Basically, they’re scientists with guns” on the show, Lopez said.

Different cases

Kollman agrees. He compared the fictional Las Vegas CSI scientists to the Maine lab’s scientists who analyze the evidence gathered by the response team.

“We don’t carry firearms, and we are never in charge of investigations. We are there as support,” he said.

Caron said the team emulates what the crime lab does – analyze the evidence they’ve collected.

“Our primary cases are not crimes against people. We mostly get crimes against property,” Kollman said.

And, unlike “CSI,” not all of Maine’s crimes are solved so easily.

Kollman said the lab has between 35 and 40 “cold cases” – any cases more than a year old – without suspects. Those include residential burglaries and crimes against people, he said. Some are currently under investigation with evidence still coming into the lab; others have been dormant for years.

“These are more of the whodunit’ types of cases,” he said.

Maine doesn’t have a cold case squad. There’s no funding.

Different faces

While he likes the way “CSI” uses computer graphics to tell the story, Leighton isn’t a big fan of the show. He prefers NBC’s “Law & Order.”

“Nowadays, Law & Order’ tends to be the most watched by real detectives and is pretty realistic,” he said.

“Law & Order” premieres today.

“They’ve gone a long ways since Adam 12′ and TJ Hooker,'” Leighton said.