http://www.tampabay.com/news/public...rouble-with-the-cops---if-youre-black/2225966 Let me pull out three small bits to give you a taste of what's been going on. "In the past three years, Tampa police have written 2,504 bike tickets — more than Jacksonville, Miami, St. Petersburg and Orlando combined. Police say they are gung ho about bike safety and focused on stopping a plague of bike thefts. But here's something they don't mention about the people they ticket: Eight out of 10 are black." "On Davis Islands, where Mayor Bob Buckhorn lives near baseball star Derek Jeter, police could issue multiple tickets. But they don't. One recent night, the Times observed a couple leaving an ice cream shop on unlit beach cruisers and a cyclist riding along the dark coastline, visible only because of the reflectors on his pedals. Only one ticket was written last year on Davis Islands. It went to a black man. The same goes for Bayshore Boulevard, another of the city's main biking destinations. Only one person got a ticket there last year. He, too, is black." "Bike tickets got special attention in 2007 when a squad set out on a mission dubbed "Bicycle Blitzkrieg." The goal, according to a department memo, was "to aggressively enforce bicycle infractions … where there has been increased criminal activity." Stopping people on bikes, especially at night, would introduce officers to "potential criminals, thus opening more avenues to make arrests and clear the streets of the subjects that are committing the crimes.""