You make a valid point. However, it shouldn't have taken 90 minutes to figure this all out.
The Air Force MPs are probably less efficient than the civilian police about this sort of thing. Anybody who has dealt with the military about anything will not be at all surprised by this. 90 minutes is as to a blink of an eye when it comes to administrative tasks performed by the military.
When we drove onto the base last year to visit this Air Force Museum, and as we passed a big sign that informed us that we were entering Wright Patterson AFB, I said aloud that we were now on a military base and we would be following all of the rules. So if the sign says “keep off the grass”, we were going to keep off the grass. When you’re inside the fence, it’s not like you are in the real world.
I believe they found out in about 10 minutes that they had made a mistake. The rest of the time was spent on how they were all going to cover their asses.