Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
A hit and run on Ocean Reef happened early this morning.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We did get the person. This was in the wee hours in the morning. A car was traveling down County Road 905, and you generally make the left to go to Card Sound towards Miami. But this person was intoxicated and did not make the left at the three way, but kept going straight, heading towards Ocean Reef, not knowing that he was going the wrong direction. And as he approached the guard shack, which has a gate, so you just can’t drive in that community, it’s a gated community, this intoxicated motorist drove right through the gates, damaging the gates, and then was driving around Ocean Reef. We got called. We had a patrol unit there at Ocean Reef. At some point in time he turned his car around to try to leave, and as he’s trying to leave Ocean Reef, we did stop him as he’s trying to leave the complex. And the damage was consistent with running through the gates. The person was not from Ocean Reef. The person was intoxicated, and this person ultimately went to jail for a DUI and the crash, leaving the scene of the accident with property damage. So yeah, interesting time we’ve had this happen in the past, where a person or persons have driven through Ocean Reef, thinking they were going to Miami, and drove right through the security gate to damage the gate. So that was a little action this morning in Ocean Reef.”
The Marathon Seafood Festival was a great event.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I did enjoy spending time with you. I did enjoy being a co host for a few minutes anyway, at the marathon Seafood Festival. We had a lot of fun. We have a really good system. As people saw, the traffic was just really, no real backup. We kept it flowing, but we kept it safe. We have plans out there to get people safely across the highway in groups and pack at our tent area, set up, and it worked out just as we wanted it to. We wanted to make it safe and secure, but keep the impact on traffic as minimal as possible. Very time intensive, very manpower intensive. Have to have a clear, distinct plan. Which we did. We had security teams inside, walking around for visibility and presence and making sure they’re safe inside and to respond in case we needed to. But also we have a contingency outside to do the traffic control on the outer perimeter, which we also had in place. So everything worked out well, no issues, no fights, no pedestrians injured, no crashes and backups, minimum. So I’m proud of my security teams. We did a really good job there, as well as at the 104 mile marker at the Irish Festival going on at the same time in front of the Caribbean Club. That was also a traffic issue, where cars are coming in and out, people are crossing, cars are parking in the center median, again, takes a plan and proper manpower and supervision to make sure those go off safely and seamlessly.”
Saturday saw an arrest of a woman from Spokane, Washington, after a chase.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Key West police did ultimately charge her with Grand Theft Auto. She was staying at the homeless shelter, and apparently not sure how she came across this car, but got this car, stole the car. Key West PD got reported the stolen car. We got the information about the car possibly heading northbound, so we had a BOLO, Be on the Lookout For, and we spot the car around the 35 mile marker, a traffic enforcement officer from the sheriff’s office, saw the car. Tried to get the car to stop, to no avail. Radioed ahead, we set up our Stinger spikes at the north end of Seven Mile Bridge, and when the car came off, we were able to spike the car. We spiked out three out of four tires on the suspect car, which is good. Unfortunately, we also spiked out two patrol cars that did not create the proper distance. When we’re going to spike, our patrol cars are supposed to create distance to give time for the spikes to be pulled back out. So I was not too thrilled about that, but the car continued from the bridge for about three or four more miles on rims and flat tires, until we got about 107 Street. We were set up to spike again at the 55 Mile Marker, but we didn’t have to. We did get the female in the car, sole person who was in the car. Yes, we did find methamphetamines, other drugs. She did not have a driver’s license. We’re able to get the car towed for the owner with three flat tires. We arrested her on charges in the sheriff’s office for fleeing and eluding, drug charges, and then we notified our friends in Key West police who also followed up to put charges on her for Grand Theft Auto. So she’s got a lot of problems. She was free, could have gone back home. Now she’s going to be sitting MCJ for a while. I don’t think she’s got money to bond out, so she’ll remain with me at the double R Bed and Breakfast for a while I’m pretty sure.”
A man was arrested recently for dumping over 500 pounds of trash, litter, camping supplies, bottles, beer cans, even bicycles and numerous other items into a makeshift camp in the woods in Key Largo.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’ve talked about this, the dumping stuff, especially in Key Largo. A lot of these properties are county owned or conservation properties that we find people that move on these properties and they just destroy them. They keep bringing junk and trash and garbage and feces, and they don’t pick up their trash. They just dump it on the ground. When we come across this, or when we get notified by the county of issues, or whether it be proactive or reactive, we do try to give them an opportunity to avoid jail, to clean up their mess. They almost always tell us, yes, yes, I’m going to do it. I’m sorry. But they almost always, never do, and when they don’t, after we give them fair opportunity to correct their behavior and to fix the problem, if they don’t, we do arrest them. We’re going to hold them accountable. We can’t just let them stay out there and keep destroying properties and our environment. So they do get arrested, we get some court information, because then we have to come out if they don’t with the county and the sheriff’s office, and we have to pick up all the stuff and get it destroyed and disposed of and clean these properties. Someone’s got to do it. The sheriff’s office doesn’t want to, but we’ve got to get it done. And if someone doesn’t step up, we’ve got to be part of the solution and just get it done. So it’s going to send a message that these people, we arrest the other people that are living in these properties that may hear, or we give them a warning that they heed the warning. They know we’re serious, that if you don’t heed the warning, you’re going to jail.”
A 71 year old Columbia man passed away after a dive accident off the coast of Islamorada on March 13.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “People come from out of state to dive here in the Keys, such a beautiful area, but a lot of people haven’t dived for a really long time. They’re generally not familiar with their gear and haven’t had a safety checkout and the 110 foot dive is a pretty technical dive, a deep dive. So they went out, he had his own gear, and they went out on a dive charter boat out of the Islamorada area, and they went out to the eagle, and he went in, and just within a couple minutes, the other divers lost sight of him, so they immediately started trying to scour and find him. A captain, a dive master from another dive boat found him on the bottom, and when they did, the regulator was out of his mouth. He had blood coming out of the nose and mouth area, which is indicative, clearly of a salt water drowning. The dive master said he tried to power inflate his BC, but it would not power inflate. He believed there was no air in the tank to inflate the BC. He then inflated his and swam the person up to the surface. But it takes a while. The dive master just can’t shoot to the surface, as we know, because he is likely to get the bends and have medical issues. By time he gets to the surface, they passed him off to the boat, who brought him on and then took the gear off and started trying to do CPR. By that point in time, he was already gone, but they continued on. Coast Guard, our friends showed up, continued CPR, rushed him in, the Fire Rescue, they determined and pronounced him deceased. Sad. It’s considered a death investigation. The Sheriff’s Office will investigate this, along with the medical examiner. We seized the dive gear. We’ll have to check the tank to make sure there was or wasn’t any air in there. If there was air, we check the purity to make sure there’s no poisoning or any type of contaminants inside of the air. The medical examiner would look at cause, this case, salt water drowning, if there was air in the tank and no issues, then they would look to see if there was a heart attack, or something else, which is a medical issue induced the death in this situation. So we’ve got to get some answers for the family. But again, no sign of foul play was involved. We think it was an unfortunate salt water drowning, of the 71 year old male.”
A woman from Marathon was arrested last week for cocaine possession.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a special operations case. Our narcotics narcotics teams had warrants for her arrest. She had been selling cocaine, so we were looking for her. We did locate her, stop her, and arrested her on outstanding Special Operation warrants for sale of cocaine, a 48 year old female from the Marathon era, so we did charge her and arrest her and get her off the streets and hold her accountable for selling drugs and endangering our citizens and community.”
Last week, the sheriff’s office received an error free independent audit of its financial operations and procedures for the 23rd consecutive year.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I’m proud of the sheriff’s office and I’m proud of my finance team. Every year, we’re able to balance up to every penny of taxpayers’ money, showing fiscal responsibility and accountability, to track people’s money to make sure we’re doing the right things by their money. I treat the citizens’ money like it’s my money in my pocket. I want them to feel confident that we are good custodians of their money, doing right by it, and that there’s no foul play of lost monies or monies that we can’t account for, can’t track. We track every single penny of it, and we back it up and prove it with independent, outside auditors who come in to audit the sheriff’s office and look at our books and make sure that we’re doing best practices and that our audits are in this case, again, perfect. So congratulations to the finance team. This team is hitting on all cylinders, and it shows each and every year with these perfect audits, which are really important to me. I always talk about fiscal responsibility, and this is fiscal responsibility at its best.”