When I lived in Tampa I got pulled over in the Brandon area by a cop that looked no older than me. (20s) and the first thing out of his mouth was that my kind of car was one of his pet peeves and then he started to spout off about violating a noise ordinance. I looked around me and its an industrial area, not exactly mom, dad and the kids playing outside. I went to court, the first meeting with the judge, the officer isn't present. so the whole cop won't shop up thing doesn't matter. What you do is enter your plea and the judge hears your story. If it's your first offense the judge most likely will dismiss the ticket but make you pay court costs, around $27, $17 if they waive a few things and you're done. When I got up there, (you wait for the hundreds of people scheduled for that day to go first) and I told the judge what the cop had said about his pet peeves and then I said , you know I really didn't realize that police work had anything to do with the officers personal biases. Then I told the judge about the noise ordinance that i had supposedly broken, after some research it turns out that there is no such ordinance in that area, let alone any areas in Brandon, including residential areas. The cop was just a jackass and the judge told me it was dismissed but also added that I needed to get my car fixed. I work in a law firm out of Tallahassee now and it really is amazing what cops get away with when people choose not to fight their tickets
