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.
Two vehicles were involved in a very serious crash on the Seven Mile Bridge this morning.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We had police, fire, rescue, tow trucks out there, so it was kind of a mess, but I had three traffic enforcement officers from the sheriff’s office out there, handling the traffic, keeping it flowing at some levels. The backlogs were very minimum in nature, so we’re looking pretty good there. Yes, another one up there by Beach Weekend up there by South College Road. We’re dealing with that as well, trying to keep the traffic flowing there. Impact should be relatively minor, but there should be some slight delays coming through there, because even this early in the morning with no crashes, that’s a difficult, challenging area going southbound into Key West.”
A traffic light will be coming to College Road.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I think the start date to start construction is slated for June 3. So it’s already been identified, it’s already been funded. It’s already gone out for bid. They’ve already selected the contractor. The groundbreaking will be June 3, to have a traffic light at North College Road, which I don’t generally like traffic lights, but that one there, I did support and push for, because we have a lot of crashes, a lot of injuries. There’s so much traffic coming out of North College Road now, as North College Road has really grown up with the college, the hospitals out there. There’s an affordable housing project, the golf course condominiums out there, and Sunset Marina. So there’s a lot of cars, a lot of traffic, a lot of people that we just can’t allow traffic just on its own to try to navigate that North College and State Road Five areas. It’s just too dangerous that it does need a traffic control device. So the light will be coming in starting June 3.”
A man and a woman were arrested for having sex in public view near children’s park in Marathon recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a sad case. These are two individuals from Marathon. They live up by Sombrero Boulevard. This is a 35 year old male and a 42 year old female. This is at the Rotary Children’s Park, on 75th Street, eight o’clock at night. They apparently get there in a truck, but they’re not having sex in the truck. They’re out in the plain view in front of the headlights of the truck, when a family who live around the corner are driving, father, mother and a 14 year old boy. As they drive by, the boy witnesses this open sex act between this male and female, and the boy indicates that the guy just looks right at him, makes eye contact and never stops. As they go past, the boy says something to the father, who then does a U turn. The father’s just in disbelief that this could really be happening. They drive back by, and sure enough, this sex act is still continuing, with this male and female in plain view at a children’s park. The 14 year old boy has his cell phone out and puts the video mode and actually videotapes the sex act occurring. They contact the sheriff’s office. At some point in time, they are watching the truck. The truck leaves. They follow the truck as it goes northbound to a restaurant. They notify the sheriff’s office. They show us the video. They identify the male and female who were involved in this lewd and lascivious act. We ultimately do arrest the male and female on lewd and lascivious charges, and then the female had additional charges of resisting. When she got to the jail in Marathon, she stripped all her clothes off in the back of the patrol car and wouldn’t get out and had to be physically removed from the car. So, sad. This is such a sad, sad day. A kid’s park? In public? You want to go in your truck and go park somewhere, rock on, but this is crazy. This is sad to see. And I’m just glad that they notified us and we’re able to find these people, and we’re going to hold them accountable. They got their mug pages on the sheriff’s office page. You can see these two winners.”
A man from Okeechobee was arrested for displaying a firearm threatening to kill a woman and was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon last week.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is sad and stupid. They’re driving down the road, a verbal domestic starts ensuing, the female’s the driver, the male is the passenger. At some point in time, he does grab the revolver, arm himself, points the weapon at her and makes the threat to kill her. She pulls the vehicle over, and then she gets in some type of a physical effort to disarm him with his gun, which is always dangerous, because you have a chance for that gun to really go off then, but she’s able to disarm him. She takes the firearm, then she throws it in the bushes. We’re called, we respond. We get everybody separated. We’re trying to figure out what’s going on. We do locate the weapon in the bushes after a short little search to find, look for this gun that was told had to be disposed of. And we do locate it, take it into protected custody so it’s not found and used by somebody else, also it’s evidence of the crime. Ultimately, we determine, we believe probable cause existed for now what’s called an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. So we did arrest this 77 year old male on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge, separate the two and as a result of him going to jail. Again, not the smartest move, but that’s another day in the life of a police officer.”
A man from Miami Gardens was in possession of eight mangrove snappers, seven of which undersized recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’re always trying to protect our resources. Eight o’clock in the morning on patrol around Whale Harbor, it’s a very known spot for people to come down and fish, especially from Miami. A 40 year old male from Miami Gardens down here fishing in the Keys. We go to inspect the catch. No fishing license down there, fishing each mango snapper, seven of which are undersized. It just wouldn’t fit in the palm of your hand, it was so small. The one was like something you used for bait, the fish was so small and we always wondered, there’s not even enough filet to get a medallion of meat out of it. Why would you just kill this before it ever has a chance to even grow up and reproduce. But that’s what happens, is that when they keep taking all these small, short fish, they never get a chance to reproduce, and thus eventually you’re going to starve and kill out the population. So seven of those eight were undersized, so we did give him a mandatory notice to appear. He’ll come before our state attorney, who takes a pretty hard line stance on environmental impact cases like these, as do our courts. We’re very lucky to see the sheriff, the state attorney and the judges all have the same state of mind that we’ve got to do everything we can to protect our national resources, to make sure they are here for future generations. Because at this rate we’re going there’ll be nothing left for future generations if we don’t do whatever we can right now.”
A 17-year-old male from Wisconsin was over the legal limit while operating an electric dirtbike motorcycle recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We are seeing more of the electric dirt bikes. We put a flyer out trying to educate the public that they are not legal for anybody. Electric dirt bikes are an off road vehicle. They’re designed to be in the woods, the dirt. They’re not able to be registered. They’re not able to be legally operated on the roads, the road shoulders, the bicycle path, so we’re starting to try to crack down on those. But besides that, these two were being operated about 11:30 at nighttime, on the shoulder of the road with no lights, clearly very dangerous. So the attempt to stop was more geared towards no lights for safety when both took off and a pursuit started, one turned off to the right and the other one kept on going. The officer focused on the one which seemed to be the most aggressive, trying to flee. We can’t stop both at that point in time, as we continue to try to catch this motorcycle and stop it, eventually, the person skidded out and lost control and crashed the e dirt bike. We determined this was a 17 year old male. This is about 11:30 at night. He’s from Wisconsin. He was presumed to be under the influence of alcohol at the time. We arrested him for a felony fleeing and eluding, a DUI. He took a breath test, as required by Florida law. If you fail to give a breath sample, you commit a crime, and you’ll be charged with a crime just for choosing to give a breast sample. During a breast sample, he blew a .138. For an adult, the limit is .08 or higher is considered being intoxicated driving. So he was almost two times the legal limits of an adult. A minor, at that age is more susceptible to show impairment, besides the lower levels for underage operators. So we did arrest him for DUI felony feeling and eluding, seized the E dirt bike. Again, parents need to be more responsible. 11:30 at nighttime, your kids are out there running around the streets when you’re in a different state from the one you’re from, on this E bike, and the kid feels pretty comfortable being out there drinking, potentially going home drunk. So you just can’t let your kids just run amok and go around where they want, when they want. There’s got to be oversight. We’ve just got to do better to parent these kids. These days, more and more, the sheriff’s office sees this stuff where kids are getting too much freedom and the parents try to be their friends, not their parents. And every action there is a reaction. The reaction is bad behavior which could cost someone their life, or, in this case, legal troubles.”
A person from Summerlin Key and one from Little Torch were charged with possession of cocaine, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “These are two middle, older, aged women who appeared to be drug dealing. The amount of drugs that they had in their car, I think, all totaled up to like, 35 grams of cocaine, which is a lot of cocaine. That’s a trafficking level. So these two women appeared to be not personal use, but dealing drugs packaged at such a quantity would indicate drug dealing. Again, a routine traffic stop in the middle of the afternoon resulted in this coming forward with these two ladies in the Lower Keys, and so we’re glad to get the drugs off the street, arrest them, hold them accountable, tow the car, keep trying to send a message. But definitely wasn’t your normal drug dealers that we would come across. Drug dealers are generally males. Generally we don’t see middle-aged, older women as much. But in this case, you never know. People are just looking to get rich and quick, I guess. But a good job again by my officers to get these drugs off the streets and just another day, I always say, you never know when you stop a car, what’s going on in the car. We talk about drugs and guns and chaos as a result of just a routine traffic stop. There is no routine traffic stop because you don’t know if there’s a body in the trunk. They just robbed a bank. We say the majority of crimes are committed by way of a car. People use the car as a mode of transportation to get to and from the crime scenes. So again, is there 50 kilos in the trunk? Is there a body? We just don’t know. Are they wanted for murder somewhere else? You come with a lax attitude, thinking that this is just nothing for a brake light or taillight, only to find out later on, or for the person to think that you know what they’ve just done, and it becomes a bigger threat to officer safety. The two most dangerous times in a law enforcement officer’s career is during traffic stops and domestic violence calls, hands down time and time again, those that are most likely to have a physical confrontation, threat on your life, a shootout. It’s a difficult, challenging times to wear a uniform anywhere.”
Easter is coming up.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I want to say Happy Easter to you and your listeners. I hope everybody enjoys this special time with the family and friends and just look around and appreciate what we’ve got with paradise and the people around us for sure, and then remind our listeners that the following week is April 11 is a Seven Mile Bridge run. So people should plan ahead. Be prepared that that is coming up. It will be a hard road closure at 6am, so no traffic will be getting through. So if you’re going to plan to travel, go to Miami, do something that weekend, you should have a plan ahead to leave early or expect the delays, but that’s not too far down the road if you’re planning trips, you need to plan ahead.”