Florida officers issued false tickets to drivers they never pulled over

[MechAg94]

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida/2021/04/21/florida-officers-issued-false-tickets-to-drivers-they-never-pulled-over-police-say/

Two Hialeah police motorcycle officers surrendered on Wednesday to face allegations they issued dozens of bogus traffic tickets to motorists.
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One man, the owner of a 2000 Toyota truck, said neither he nor anyone who drove the car had been pulled over. Another victim, who’d never been pulled over, got several tickets attributed to his truck, but in a made-up name: “Martcello Strovanov.”

The scheme began to unravel thanks in part to a defense law firm chasing business.
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The office asked the motorist, Reicel Sosa Polo, if he needed legal help with the 10 traffic tickets that could wreck his driving record. Sosa was stunned because he’d never gotten pulled over, although he recalled driving past two Hialeah police motormen earlier that month, according to court records.

Sosa called Hialeah and spoke to Perez, who said he didn’t recall the citations but that if he went to court, they would be dismissed, according to an arrest warrant. Sosa eventually filed a complaint to Hialeah Police’s internal affairs bureau.

I got this from Leto's Law. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnyShF4WV1U
He makes a very good point that this could be really hard to prove.  About the only "evidence" you might have is lack of video of the traffic stop unless there is nearby video of the area they were doing traffic stops.  I guess if they did this regularly, you might catch them on video doing nothing all day when they were supposed to have issued traffic tickets.  I hope that is what the police did in investigating this.  The only other evidence might be witnesses and affidavits from motorists attesting that they were never pulled over.

[HankB]

Doesn't the driver have to sign something when he's ticketed for a moving violation by an officer? Not an admission of guilt, but an acknowledgement that he got the ticket? No signature = no ticket.

[bedlamite]

Doesn't the driver have to sign something when he's ticketed for a moving violation by an officer? Not an admission of guilt, but an acknowledgement that he got the ticket? No signature = no ticket.

Depends on the jurisdiction. Not required here.

[Hawkmoon]

Ticket quotas at work.

[griz]

I thought most patrol cars had cameras in them now?

[Hawkmoon]

I thought most patrol cars had cameras in them now?

Most do, but perhaps not all.

These dudes were motorcycle cops.

[Bogie]

Here in the STL, there was a huge spittlescreeching about how some little municipalities (St. Louis County has over 100 "cities" within the borders) were issuing tickets as revenue generation. And... People who drive hoopties are more likely to pay them, as opposed to wealthier people being more likely to flip it to an attorney, which would then cost the muni money... So, the state basically said that the tickets didn't really mean anything. While at the same time, the social justice warriors carefully explained to our police that they weren't supposed to ever get in a situation where they might have to shoot Sumdood, or they would be utterly destroyed.
 
So now we have Sumdood and his buddies playing Grand Theft Auto STL, and when they wreck the stolen Dodge Charger, they abandon it, and go steal something else.

[MechAg94]

Here in the STL, there was a huge spittlescreeching about how some little municipalities (St. Louis County has over 100 "cities" within the borders) were issuing tickets as revenue generation. And... People who drive hoopties are more likely to pay them, as opposed to wealthier people being more likely to flip it to an attorney, which would then cost the muni money... So, the state basically said that the tickets didn't really mean anything. While at the same time, the social justice warriors carefully explained to our police that they weren't supposed to ever get in a situation where they might have to shoot Sumdood, or they would be utterly destroyed.
 
So now we have Sumdood and his buddies playing Grand Theft Auto STL, and when they wreck the stolen Dodge Charger, they abandon it, and go steal something else.

1.  Poor people don't just get arrested for more crime, they generally commit more crimes.  It isn't rocket science.  I think that is often pretty consistent no matter what ethnicity is poor. 
2.  The rich people would be less likely to dump the tickets on an attorney if the authoritarians would stop trying to make them more painful by having it affect your license.  It doesn't help that is hurts your insurance.  If it were just a reasonable fine, they might just pay it and move on.
3.  As you pointed out, if you take away the consequences for crime, the criminals will do it with impunity. 

[castle key]

I worked with an officer using a similar scam.

There is an annual "event" in the DC area sponsored by the Council of Governments. It's "Smooth Operator." Allegedly it incentivizes police officers to focus on driving violations. The department I worked for challenged the motor officers to write lots of tickets and rewarded the "winner" with additional time off.

The dirty officer would make a legit stop and write a legit ticket. After he cleared the stop, he would write additional tickets, but classify them as warnings, which would NOT trigger a payment or court demand or result in a suspension. He simply was padding the numbers, chasing the additional time off/toaster oven. What he didn't realize was that once the warnings went into the DMV system, they still appeared on a driving record.

This unraveled when someone contested the legit ticket. The judge wavered but looked at the driving record and was startled to see that the defendant had lied about his clean record and hammered the defendant. Defendant pulls his own record to see what happened and contacted IA. IA found hundreds of similar instances from that officer.

The officer was fired; should have been charged criminally.

99% bad officers give the good 1% a bad reputation......

[Bogie]

Poor people are more likely to pay the tickets. People driving older cars were targeted more than people driving newer cars.
 
Now, you have thugs driving stolen Dodge Chargers and shooting out the windows.
 
Seriously - Saturday had a little old lady customer who was VERY upset that someone had shot through her back seat.