This story is just appalling. If you believe police are here to protect and serve, this story proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the police would rather make your life a living hell than taking a few seconds to answer "hey, how do I get to the freeway from here?"

Couple Arrested For Asking For Directions

In summary, a couple leaves a baseball game in an area they've never been to before & get lost trying to find the freeway. They see a police vehicle, so they go over to it & say "Thank goodness, can you tell us how to get to the 95?" The cop says "you ran a stop sign!"
Now, this is probably correct. When you are lost & looking for help, its easy to miss a sign. It's happened to all of us at one time or another. So the couple says "okay, I guess we did, write us a ticket. Now can you tell us how to get to the freeway?" The cop responded "NO!" Then tells them "you got here on your own, you can get back on your own." So the couple, still completely lost sees another police car. They drive over to it to ask that cop for help, but the first cop steps between their car & the other car saying "my partner isn't going to help you if I'm not." This situation has obviously gone way to far, and this cop obviously forgot who she works for & who pays her salary, not to mention what she does for a living.
So, the couple, pretty much out of options at this point, calls their parents, who coincidentally are police officers as well (at this time I will give them the benefit of the doubt). They pulled over on the curb & turned on their emergency lights & made the call. A few minutes later they both end up in custody for trespassing. Eight hours later they're released without being charged (geese, who would have guessed)...

This police officer should read what her car says at some point. It says To Protect & Serve, not To Purposely Be An Ass. I can only assume she got that question wrong on her exam. Needless to say this story is outrageous. The police always tell us there here for our protection and help, but this kind of thing shows as far as they're concerned, everybody is a criminal and everybody deserves to be treated that way.

This cop deserves punishment, but I'm guessing nothing will come of it. And of course cops will continue to do these things because they know with the blue wall in place, nobody will ever call them on it. The ONLY time a police officer gets disciplined for not doing their job properly is when there is enough public outcry that they have no choice. There may be some here, but I'm guessing the level of outcry in this case will be nowhere near enough to actually force them to do anything. But I may be wrong, only time will tell.

I really wish the story contained the officer's name...

[UPDATE]

Well there's a follow up story indicating that the police report is different than what the couple said, but being I had a cop flat out lie to me then all but admit he was lying 5 seconds later, I'm not exactly willing to fully believe the police's version (read that story here). However, the police report STILL included the following:

The police report of the circumstances indicates Preston told the couple she would arrest them for trespassing -- on a public street lined with public housing units.

So, the report does admit that the officer threatened to arrest the couple for being somewhere they were fully allowed to be by law. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a cop would threaten to arrest someone for a crime that their own police report states wasn't valid. It doesn't say they were in a no parking zone or a construction zone. So yeah, the officer threatened to arrest the couple for doing something 100% legal, then proceeded to do so because (by their report) the person told them they didn't want to deal with the officer...

Essentially what it boils down to is even if the police report is fully accurate (which I personally don't believe), the cop was still out of line...