Shit, I deal with people using my apartment’s dumpster as their own dumping ground because why should they have to pay anything for the landfill? My neighbor called the cops after midnight because she saw people dumping a bunch of trash bags in our dumpster and also yelling. Cop arrived after they had left, dug through the trash a bit and managed to find mail WITH THEIR ADDRESS ON IT! Contacted them immediately and forced them to clean it all up (they did!). They absolutely can handle situations like OP’s on their own. And even then, an officer has every legal right to obtain information from the DMV for an illegally parked car on someone else’s property. This person’s response makes no sense either because OP wasn’t cut off on the road or any other reason they listed. This is totally within legal grounds to do at least a little legwork to help out a citizen they swore to protect and serve.

There’s a bit of a difference between sending someone to the wrong aisle because they got it wrong and just blatantly not doing what should have been a routine job by running the plates. That’d be like you deciding not to do your job because it’s an inconvenience to you. An unknown vehicle was parked on someone else’s property. It should be basic knowledge on any police officer to run the plates instead of shrugging shoulders and going “Welp idk, figure it out yourself”. It shouldn’t take a news reporter to do an officer’s job but here we are.