Had you and Puppage read the entire story, you would have known that this took place outside the emergency room at the hospital.
Duh!
OK, the cop could have walked into the hospital and found out. Doesn't change my point and makes the cop look like even more of jerk.
Even his fellow cops are jerks. They did go inside and confirm that Moats' MIL had just died.
Not a single one told the cop writing the ticket (a rookie, no less) to cool it and let Moats go into the hospital to be with his wife and her mother in her last moments.
Instead, they looked the other way while this cop went through his ego trip. Afterward, everyone is totally disgusted. While it was happening, everything was fine with them.