Couple Arrested For Asking For Directions

[genieroze]

Couple Arrested For Asking For Directions

BALTIMORE -- Baltimore City police arrested a Virginia couple over the weekend after they asked an officer for directions.

WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team reporter David Collins said Joshua Kelly and Llara Brook, of Chantilly, Va., got lost leaving an Orioles game on Saturday. Collins reported a city officer arrested them for trespassing on a public street while they were asking for directions .

"In jail for eight hours -- sleeping on a concrete floor next to a toilet," Kelly said.

"It was a nightmare," Brook said. "I was in there thinking I was just dreaming and waiting to wake up."

more with video
http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/9229472/detail.html

[ComerPerro]

1. how do you trespass on a public street?

[atommom]

3. By definition, that sounds impossible.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

7. release with no charges filed

obviously a bullshit charge from the get-go. :wtf:

[pnwmom]

28. The Baltimore Sun said it was a street in a public housing

project. (Article below.) I don't know if that makes any difference.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Bizarre

[derby378]

4. I smell a lawsuit

Cha-CHING!!

[BrklynLiberal]

13. A well-deserved one!!! Those kids were terrorized by the cops that

stopped them, even if they actually did run a stop sign.

[KansDem]

5. Man! Those Baltimore City police are TOUGH!!!

I hope I never get lost there! :scared:

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. That is just horrible!!

Trespassing on a city street?

[genieroze]

9. The guys parents are cops in PA.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. Sounds like a scene...

From a Jon Waters movie.

[godhatesrepublicans]

10. Well as a Baltimore resident, I say thank goodness the police are...

..finally cracking down. Damn tourists, getting in the way and messing up our proud tradition of shooting each other to the tune of 300+ murders a year. I hope that officer gets a medal! ;-)

[Missy M]

11. The only thing I can see why this happened is the driver...

of the vehicle ran a stop sign (and said it was no big deal). Running a stop sign is a very big deal, that is how innocent people get killed. How they got arrested for trespassing on a public street is beyond me, it doesn't even make sense.

[pnwmom]

22. If you read the whole article, it doesn't appear to be about the

stop sign at all. When the young man said it was no big deal, I think he meant that the officer wasn't treating that as a big deal. (There is no mention of him even issuing a ticket.) What the officer did make a big deal out of was refusing to give the lost couple directions -- even to the point when the officer intervened and prevented a second officer in a different patrol car from offering directions!

And both of the girls parents are police officers, so I would think they know how to act around the police.

Reading the whole article, it sounded like the only big deal here was at least one officer's out-sized EGO.

[Missy M]

29. I did read the whole article and the driver said he just...

wanted to pay the fine for running a stop sign and go home. That is why I am assuming he thought running a stop sign is no big deal. I am not condoning the police officers actions but I think there may be more to the story than we are hearing right now. I know some people think they can get away with anything because a relative is a police officer.

[AlCzervik]

12. i read the whole article and it seems awfully strange and the lady

they asked for help sounds like a nasty piece of work. Is that a fancy schmancy section of town?

[The Deacon]

14. Honey?

I don't think we'll be visiting the Maryland side of the Chesapeake after all this Summer...

[godhatesrepublicans]

18. Nope Cherry Hill is the slummy-est slum in Slumberg.

The cop's behavior was pretty typical around here. We don't have the best and brightest in the Baltimore PD. We do have as a provable fact the worst driving cops in the nation. we get at least 2-3 cops killed a year in traffic accidents that they cause themselves. One year it was 5.

[Recursion]

25. fancy?

No, Cherry Hill is more of a "don't stop your car if you have to drive through or you'll get shot at."

And actually it's pretty easy to get arrested down there if you're white because the assumption is anybody white is only there to buy drugs. That may have been what the cop thought.

[pnwmom]

26. No, it's a public housing, drug dealing section of town.

I just found that out in the Baltimore Sun article below.

[genieroze]

15. We sometimes go there to watch a game, it's easy to get lost.

[1620rock]

16. The cops are going nuts again like they did in the 60's. eom

[etherealtruth]

20. I love Baltimore ...

...I've also spent an inordinate amount of time lost there. I guess I'm lucky I haven't been abused by the local police (?)

[HonorTheConstitution]

17. The Gestapo is protecting you - Enjoy the ballgame

At least some of our Executive branch is going overboard! If this story is true I feel with this folks:

This happened to me 9 years ago in Seattle. Took a higway exit too early (was dark already), did not see the 25 mph sign behind a tree (because I was speeding with 35) and got pulled over within a second. Guess I was stupid, obviously a tourist trap. I was lucky: only 160$ fine and no prison. And after the ticket I got directions back to the highway! Makes you visiting a city right away again. But hey. Verizon and At&T is fighting terrorism for us, so lets the police make sure that people can enjoy the ballgame.

[newyawker99]

37. Hi HonorTheConstitution!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[dogday]

19. Storm Troopers.....

Homeland security has been training them well.....

[Warren DeMontague]

21. Y'all trying to lure more tourists there, or what?

Sounds absolutely fucking charming.

[godhatesrepublicans]

23. our new motto. "BALTIMORE; STAY THE @#%& HOME!!!"

[liberalhistorian]

38. Hey, I thought that was

New Jersey's official slogan! :evilgrin:

[Warren DeMontague]

39. "Welcome Wagon. Paddy Wagon.

Same Difference!"

[pnwmom]

24. Baltimore Sun offers more details. Everything murkier.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.lost18may18,0,4774896.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

[AlCzervik]

31. someone is lying, it looks like the cop has changed the story

or at least added some details to it.

[yellowcanine]

35. Be interesting to see if "grabbing the pen" was in the original report.

[BiggJawn]

32. "Running stop signs" Easiest Probable Cause in the book

Out-of-state car, in neighbourhood known for atracting drug traffic, Pull 'em over and cite them for not coming to a full stop and take it from there.

Betcha McCheech, the drug-dawg gave his nose a good work-out going over their car in the impound lot...

[mainegreen]

27. Baltimore cops are tools.

Unfortunately most residents of Lord Baltimore's city are scary as hell too. Those cops have a shitty job in a shitty city, but after living there and dealing with those cops, I don't sympathize in the least.

[Nye Bevan]

30. Well at least their Orioles won 11-1

so their day was not a *complete* disaster.

[yellowcanine]

33. I have been in that part of Baltimore. I still get lost trying to get to

295 or 95 South from 83 South (Yeah I know I should just go around the Baltimore Beltway) and I been traveling through there for 25 years. Granted, I am not the best navigator but Baltimore has some atrocious and confusing signage. Not to mention that it sounds as if they also do a lousy job of training their cops.

[Recursion]

34. Yeah, I know what you mean

Every time I get to know a road they build a stadium over it.

[KamaAina]

36. Huh? Baltimore drivers *invented* stop-sign running

or, at the very least, raised it to an art form.

We used to call it a "Baltimore stop": see stop sign, slow down to maybe 15 or 20 mph, keep on going straight through. Once my school bus was pulled over for just this very thing (in Baltimore County, not City).

Moral; If there's anyplace where running a stop sign "isn't a big deal", it's Charm City. So what the Sam Hill was really going on? :eyes:

[genieroze]

40. Some rogue cops on a power trip?