Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM yesterday morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
An 18-year-old from Indiana was arrested recently for attempting to steal a motorcycle from a Sugarloaf Key residence.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “It’s an 18 year old male from Indiana who’s down here, and he was in Sugarloaf. This is about 9:35 at nighttime. He was on a property, appeared to be trying to steal the truck. Was inside the truck. They had good surveillance video cameras at the house, which is going to help us for a lot of reasons, and appear to be going through the truck trying to find keys. And then was on the property, couldn’t find the keys. Was rummaging through the under part of the house area, and had found a set of keys for a motorcycle on the property. Appeared to be trying to steal the motorcycle, but he gave up and then left. We got a call. We got the video surveillance, we put a BOLO, be on the lookout for, we found him a short time later, short distance away, and now on a golf cart, riding a golf cart. When we stopped him, he said he’d rented the golf cart, but there was no tag, no license, he had no paperwork, so we did not believe that this was a rental golf cart, especially you cannot use that on the highway, because golf carts can only be used on roads which are 35 mile an hour or less. So we thought he had just stole this golf cart, but we had no reports, obviously. So we towed the golf cart, and we suspected that we would get a call the following day, which we did. We got a call about a stolen golf cart. Went there and the owner identified the golf cart, which is the one that we have taken into possession. So he was already under arrest for a burglary, attempted burglary, tampering evidence. When we did stop him on the golf cart, he dropped the keys to the motorcycle and tried to kick them under the car, which tied, linked him to the motorcycle and the property where the burglary initially occurred. So that was nice, so we arrested him that night. Next day, we got the report, we filed more charges for a burglary and Grand Theft for the golf cart, a bicycle was located at that property, which would you believe was also stolen. So we took the bicycle in the property. We’re still trying to identify who lost a bike or who had a bicycle stolen. So this young man appeared to be just stealing modes of transportation to go to from one location to another, to try to keep upgrading his theft from a bicycle, he had a golf cart. He tried to get a motorcycle, tried to get a truck. So we’ve got a variety of charges on him. Investigation’s ongoing, but he’ll be probably staying in the Rick Ramsay Bed Breakfast for a little while, I think.”
A man recently hit another man with a full bag of beer bottles in Marathon around 15th Street.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is the gas station of 15th Street, US 1, a male, one inside, bought three cans of beer, and he had them inside a plastic grocery type bag. He came out, had some altercation with another individual, and he then used the bag, the handles holding it, and struck the person in the face with the three full cans of beer that were in aluminum cans, so that can do a lot of damage. So we got called about the altercation. We got on scene. Both parties were there. Kept them separated. We got good surveillance footage from the store to see what exactly took place, as indicated by the victim, we did see the suspect in this case, swing the bag containing the three beers striking in the face, causing injuries, minor injuries. So we did arrest that individual for those charges there. I think this is a couple homeless individuals from that 15th Street area who kind of hang out at that gas station quite a bit. So unfortunately, stupid decisions based off of anger results in him taking a trip to jail.”
A 36 year old Key Largo man armed with two knives was arrested on New Year’s Day for apparently stealing several items from a car.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “He has some level of autism, but is very functional. He was seen rifling through a truck, stealing glasses and some other stuff by the kids. These young kids, at some point time, confronted him. He got a very angry and aggressive. At some point time, brought out, brandished two knives and became very angry and violent towards the kids coming towards him. The kids ran away. We got contacted. We identified who he was. Ultimately, after the investigation, we determined that he did brandish and threatened these juveniles with these knives and that he did enter this vehicle and rifle through and steal stuff out of it. So a sad case, but we’re more so glad that nobody got hurt, and we’re able to open in this case up right away and get it closed right away without anybody get injured and hold someone accountable, but just a sad day for sure.”
A case of child neglect came out of Tavernier recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “So sad. These are two terrible parents. People that should not be I think caring for children. This is really hard to believe. You took a three month old, one year old and a two year old to a bar. They showed up drunk on a golf cart in the first place. Got into the bar. People were just floored to see these kids in there, and then they were loud, obnoxious, causing a disturbance in the bar. At some point time, the male had the child, one of the kids, in his hand, and almost dropped him. At one point in time, the two year old wandered away and was just wandering out, with no supervision. A fight took place at the bar. We got called, and they continued to be drunk and disorderly and stupid and aggressive towards law enforcement. We ultimately had to arrest both these parents on multiple charges. We had to call in DCF, notify them, get DCF involvement. Had to get some family members to come take possession of these infants, these young kids. This is just hard to believe how stupid these two adults were who had the ultimate responsibility of care, custody, control for an infant, a one year old and a two year old. Selfish to go on the golf cart drunk in the first place, go to the bar, trying to drink with these kids, letting these kids run around and then getting in a fight, altercations. Your number one responsibility has to be these young kids. So just shameful. Shameful.”
The Save our First Responders 5K is coming up this weekend.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is being organized by Deputy Snipes. He’s put this together. So we think it’s a good thing. I’ll be there myself, but it’s not an MCSO event, but is a good public safety event that we think is good out there in Key West, out there at the amphitheater in the morning, so I’m looking forward to see who shows up, how it goes. We’re hoping for a successful turnout event for these men and women who put this together for sure. That’ll be this Saturday. I do have a full week. This whole week is a station inspection. Every day we’ll be inspecting different parts of our station. Once a year we get together, all the officers. We inspect themselves, the uniforms, our cars, our equipment to make sure that they have everything they’re supposed to, make sure it’s clean. We do full inspections, give a briefing. We go ahead and give a State of the Union so that the officers get a chance to ask any questions they may have. So it’s pretty big deal. They’re all in full class, a uniforms, hats and it’s a chance for them to see talk, meet the administrative personnel if they don’t know them. Get a chance to hear where we’re headed, what our plans are. Get a chance for them to air any questions, concerns, problems they may have. So it’s a fully interactive program of trying to make sure that we have communication, cooperation, partnership and teamwork occurring within MCSO. So that’ll be this whole week. I’ll be tied up each and every day, including Saturday, with the 5k run. So this, yes, is a busy week for me, but hey, that’s okay. It’s good stuff. We do try to have the transparency. We do try to have the above average law enforcement agency providing that professional services, but I have almost 600 people. There are a few officers that drive me crazy. But we try the best we can to provide the best level of service, and I think it shows with our community outreach, which is different from most agencies, of how far we go with the true community policing. But I do want to wish you and your listeners a happy new year. For us it was a relatively quiet New Year’s in the county. I had a lot of extra staff out. We did try to pre warn our citizens, so there’s no surprises that we’re going to have extra officers out. We don’t want a gotcha, we want compliance. Overall, we had a pretty compliant holiday weekend, which was a relatively uneventful. We saw heavy traffic, but we talked about that on your last show that we would see after Christmas, a sharp increase in traffic. And my predictions came true again.”