Legal Crimes

For Tom Jones living in Tampa, Florida has been a a nightmare for the past year and a half. It all started way back in December of 2017 when Tom Jones got a citation in the mail for being signaled out for a Red Light camera violation from the city of Tampa. The citation was for $200 billed through the manufacture of the camera equipment supplied to the city. The Red Light camera that the city of Tampa uses comes from Texas. When Tom realized what was happening through research he found out that if he paid the fine of $200 that money would not got to the city of Tampa but to the company in Texas that supplies the Red Light Cameras. 

Tom is a senior on fixed Social Security as his only source of income and having to pay that $200 fine just was an impossibility. For Tom that left very little room to keep his head above water as they say. The choice Tom was left with was to pay the fine which he didn’t have the funds to do so or hope the city would forget that they issued that citation because Tom also found out that the city was immersed in a massive volume of Red Light citations.

Six months latter Tom received notice in the mail that his license was suspended until he paid that $200 fine. Tom’s license is suspended not for a period of time but indefinitely.That is until Tom pays the $200 his license remains suspended. This type of scenario is being played out every day in Tampa. And Tampa is the last city in the state of Florida that enforces Red Light camera violations. 

There are two types illegitimate activities all stemming from any city that employs Red Light Cameras. One: Red Light Cameras are a form of entrapment in the way they can be rigged to increase the number of citations issued which increases revenue not to the city itself but for the profiteering of Red Light Camera companies. The second one is in two forms of extortion that the city of Tampa and the state of Florida uses. One form of extortion involves that to reinstate Tom’s license he must pay that original $200 plus other costs of more than another $200. And the other form of Extortion is that for people like Tom that are in the same dire financial straits in order to get the financial resources like to sell his car the state won’t let him because he hasn’t paid the original fine and other costs that are always tacked on because the state puts a lock on the car titled until such fine is paid.

There has been much talk about the right to travel and in states like California have made every provision to accommodate drivers that don’t carry drivers licenses That is unless they use motor vehicles in commerce. When drivers use the highways and roads for commercial enterprises like cab, or Truck drivers they are required to obtain the proper license. But, for an individual who goes about their daily lives like driving to the store or to a friends house the right to travel is applied where no license is required. Some states are already adopting the rule that is already part of the original Constitution as a right to travel.

Tom Jones is just one of millions in the country that are imbedded in a system that targets the poor and the elderly. Unjustly victimized by not only the profiteering of companies but by city and state governments who openly use their legal authority to commit Extortion using entrapment for financial gains. But, by definition extortion and entrapment used together in Tom Jones case is an illegal activity done solely for the purpose to induce financial hardship. And for Tom the deck remains stacked against him. The nightmare continues.