Sadly, this doesn't surprise me too much. Baltimore cops have an overdeveloped sense of "he's messing with me, I must put him in his place."
I do question just how the hell they got into Cherry Hill from the ballpark area, but I've managed to get myself dreadfully lost before, too. Still, I suspect that the cop thought they were yuppies looking to buy drugs, instead of just lost tourists; that's a plausible evaluation of two white people from Virginia driving around Cherry Hill after dark.
Well, "I don't like the way he looked at me, and I've got a gun and a badge" isn't *technically* a chargeable offense in Baltimore, but it might as well be. They're just lucky the cop didn't "find" a baggie with drugs in their car -- that's been known to happen here in the last few years.
I saw a mention of the case on the teaser for the evening news, so perhaps the publicity will induce the cops to offer a settlement, but I'm not holding my breath.
I missed the story on the evening news but there is this report in today's Baltimore Sun, which says that the charge is actually "trespassing on public housing property", and tells the location of where thecops say that the couple was stopped.
Here is the Google maps link to where they were stopped, and here is a link to roughly where they were parked by the baseball stadium. I can't think of any plausible way they could get from the ballpark to Cherry Hill without going out Hanover Street and passing under I-95.
I suppose that being unfamiliar with the area, they could have gotten turned around; getting onto I-95 from Hanover Street is, to put it gently, non-intuitive. Still, they went a long damn way and wound up *deep* in territory where you just don't see white yuppies unless they're coming in to score drugs. That doesn't excuse the officer's behavior, but I see why she found their story about being lost unlikely.
Baltimore cops are famous for not bothering the real (i.e. "dangerous") criminals. They only pick on easy prey. It took some hired guns to nail the guy who broke in to my car, as the cops couldn't be bothered.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 12:07 am (UTC)I do question just how the hell they got into Cherry Hill from the ballpark area, but I've managed to get myself dreadfully lost before, too. Still, I suspect that the cop thought they were yuppies looking to buy drugs, instead of just lost tourists; that's a plausible evaluation of two white people from Virginia driving around Cherry Hill after dark.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 02:54 am (UTC)I saw a mention of the case on the teaser for the evening news, so perhaps the publicity will induce the cops to offer a settlement, but I'm not holding my breath.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 01:05 am (UTC)Here is the Google maps link to where they were stopped, and here is a link to roughly where they were parked by the baseball stadium. I can't think of any plausible way they could get from the ballpark to Cherry Hill without going out Hanover Street and passing under I-95.
I suppose that being unfamiliar with the area, they could have gotten turned around; getting onto I-95 from Hanover Street is, to put it gently, non-intuitive. Still, they went a long damn way and wound up *deep* in territory where you just don't see white yuppies unless they're coming in to score drugs. That doesn't excuse the officer's behavior, but I see why she found their story about being lost unlikely.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 02:11 am (UTC)They only pick on easy prey. It took some hired guns to nail the guy who broke
in to my car, as the cops couldn't be bothered.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 05:26 am (UTC)