Driving while white? Cherry Hill is a very bad part of Baltimore

[Gary E]

Couple Arrested For Asking For Directions

POSTED: 7:23 am EDT May 17, 2006
UPDATED: 10:52 am EDT May 17, 2006
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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."
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Collins reported it was a nightmare ending to a nearly perfect day. He said the couple went to a company picnic and watched the Orioles beat Kansas City. It was their first trip to Camden Yards and asked two people for directions to Interstate 95 South when they left.

Collins said somehow they ended up in the Cherry Hill section of south Baltimore. Hopelessly lost, relief melted away concerns after they spotted a police vehicle.

"I said, 'Thank goodness, could you please get us to 95?" Kelly said.

"The first thing that she said to us was no -- you just ran that stop sign, pull over," Brook said. "It wasn't a big deal. We'll pay the stop sign violation, but can we have directions?"

"What she said was 'You found your own way in here, you can find your own way out.'" Kelly said.

Collins said the couple spotted another police vehicle and flagged that officer down for directions. But Officer Natalie Preston, a six-year veteran of the force, intervened.

"That really threw us for a loop when she stepped in between our cars," Kelly said. "(She) said my partner is not going to step in front of me and tell you directions if I'm not."

Collins reported the circumstances got worse. Kelly pulled 40 feet forward parking next to a curb and put his flashers on while Brook was on the phone to her father hoping he could help her with directions. Both her parents are police officers in the Harrisburg, Pa., area.

"(Brook's father) was in the middle of giving us directions when the officer screeched up behind us and got out of the car and asked me to step out. I obeyed," Kelly said. "I obeyed everything -- stepped out of the car, put my hands behind my back, and the next thing I know, I was getting arrested for trespassing."

"By this time, I was completely in tears," Brook said. "I said, 'Ma'am, you know, we just need your help. We are not trying to cause you any trouble. I'm not leaving him here.' What she did was walk over to my side of the car and said, 'Ok, we are taking you downtown, too.'"

Collins said the couple was released from jail without being charged with anything. Brook is now concerned the arrest may complicate a criminal background check she's going through in her job as a child care worker.

Collins said police left Kelly's car unlocked and the windows down at the impound lot. He reported a cell phone charger, pair of sunglasses and 20 CDs were stolen.

Baltimore City police said they are looking into the incident.

Copyright 2006 by TheWBALChannel.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Gary E]

The police are claiming the male argued with the officer, tried to grab her ticket book and wouldn't leave the area.

It'll be interesting to see how this sorts out.



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

Driver argued with officer, report says
Lost man ticketed, and his refusal to leave prompts arrest; prosecutors decline to pursue case
By Gus G. Sentementes

Originally published May 18, 2006
A Baltimore police officer who arrested a young Virginia couple who claim they were asking for directions after getting lost in a South Baltimore neighborhood stated in a report that the driver argued with her and tried to tear a ticket out of a citation book.
Officer Natalie N. Preston wrote in police documents that, after she ticketed the driver for running a stop sign on Round Road in Cherry Hill, the man held onto her pen before she grabbed it back and that he then refused to leave, prompting her to arrest him and his girlfriend on suspicion of trespassing on public housing property and failing to obey a lawful order.

The account offers the first explanation of the arrests from police after complaints by the couple in which they said they were arrested after asking an officer how to leave South Baltimore's Cherry Hill neighborhood.

Authorities declined to elaborate on the police report yesterday, saying the matter is being investigated by the department's Internal Affairs Division.

Prosecutors at Central Booking and Intake Center, where Joshua Kelley, 22, and Llara Brook, 20, were taken after their arrest, reviewed the officer's statement and decided not to pursue the case.

"This did not rise to a case that we believe should be criminally prosecuted," said spokeswoman Margaret T. Burns. She said the couple, who were arrested Saturday evening, were held at Central Booking for more than eight hours until prosecutors ordered them released without charges.

Police said the stop occurred about 8:25 p.m. Saturday when an officer stopped them near Round and Bridgeview roads.

In an interview last night, Kelley, who said his only previous trip to Baltimore was three years ago, said he was not trying to argue with the officer and that the officer misinterpreted his movements.

"I said, 'Before I sign this, can you please give us directions back to the highway?'" Kelley said. "I'm horrible with directions."

Kelley said he did question the officer about whether she was in a position to see the car he was driving as it passed a stop sign, but that he was "never belligerent."

The incident, first reported by The Examiner, began when the couple traveled to Baltimore from their home in Chantilly, Va., to attend an Orioles baseball game Saturday afternoon. Kelley said they got lost coming into Baltimore.

After the game, the couple said they got lost again after they left a Lee Street parking lot and tried to return to Interstate 95 and instead ended up in Cherry Hill, where they were stopped by police. The officers involved in the incident are part of the Police Department's housing section, which patrols the city's public housing complexes.

Kelley said he remembers seeing a sign for Interstate 95 North but that he did not get on the highway and continued to look for signs for I-95 South.

Kelley denied that he and his girlfriend were looking to buy drugs in Cherry Hill, a neighborhood that has often struggled with the illegal drug trade.

"I was honestly lost and not there to buy drugs," Kelley said. "I didn't even know Cherry Hill before I got arrested."

Kelley, who lives with Brook at his parents' house in Chantilly, has a prior misdemeanor conviction for embezzlement stemming from a 2003 incident, according to Virginia criminal court records. He said he presented a receipt for an item he had not purchased to a cashier at a Home Depot in exchange for less than $200 in cash.

Paul M. Blair Jr., the city Fraternal Order of Police union president, said he could not understand how the couple got lost leaving Camden Yards and ended up in the heart of Cherry Hill.

"The only version we're hearing is the spin being put out by the couple in the press," Blair said. "Of course, if it's an official investigation, the officers can't tell their version until the investigation is over. There's always two versions of any story."