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.
There were some fatalities from a car crash in the county over the weekend.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “It’s so sad anytime we talk about a loss of life. This was a single vehicle crash at the 97.5 mile marker. We have to wait for FHP, who’s the lead agency investigating, doing what’s called the traffic homicide investigation to determine the cause of the crash, whether it be speed, alcohol, and/or drugs is yet to be determined. There was two younger folks in the car, I think they were somewhere in their 20s. A male was the driver, lost control of the vehicle. The vehicle, after losing control, went off the main road, onto the shoulder, striking an electric pole. And those poles do not give, there’s no flex whatsoever. So the car comes to an immediate, sudden stop, and then the damage is severe. With a smaller compact car, I think, like a Toyota Supra, so a very small car, the male was critical, the female was pronounced deceased on scene. The male, they got him to Mariners Hospital to try to render a higher level of care. He could not survive an air medical flight, so he was driven to the hospital. But as soon as he got to the hospital, they determined he’d also passed away. The male was a local resident from a local family. The female, at the time, was yet to be identified. A notice of the next of kin was notified for the male, again, the female, they were still trying to identify who she was, to make notifications to the family. So sad, senseless loss of life. Traffic had to be diverted for several hours during the traffic homicide investigation. So that did make it a little more difficult for law enforcement services to keep traffic flowing in both directions with a road shift.”
A traffic stop in Islamorada recently netted a significant amount of illegal drugs.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This case hasn’t gone out reported yet, but I did get the call this morning about it. It started as a traffic stop where they were thinking the motorist may have been intoxicated. Initially, two officers were behind a car that was failing to maintain a single lane that was going through the Islamorada area somewhere around the 83 mile markers thereabouts. They made a traffic stop to check on the driver to see if this was alcohol related or a medical or sleepy driver. They determined, once they stopped the car that it was a medical emergency. They called in rescue 20 from Islamorada, and the person appears to be having an issue at the time with their insulin. So we provided medical attention first, and while out with the car, we noticed a large amount of drug paraphernalia in plain view in the car, which gave us authorization to search the vehicle, we had probable cause at that point time. The officers located just over 380 grams of cocaine, which makes it a trafficking level case, which enhances the penalty. Methamphetamines, drug paraphernalia. So once this person’s medical was taken care of, then we moved into a criminal component. Ultimately, we did arrest him for trafficking cocaine and possession of methamphetamines. This is not a user. This is a drug dealer when you’re talking about that volume of weight of narcotics. You had about almost a pound of cocaine. So that’s a lot of cocaine. A kilo is 2.2 pounds, so we’re talking about quite a bit of dope.”
A Cudjoe Key man was arrested for battery for hitting and choking a woman to the point where she lost consciousness last week.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Domestic calls are one of the most dangerous calls we can go on. We did get a call about a domestic violence call in progress around the Cudjoe area. We responded. By the time we got there, the male was gone, the female was there, and we found her in the bed, bedroom area by the foot of her bed, on the ground, unconscious, but still breathing, had clear signs of domestic violence, with bruising and injuries from consistent with being battered. We provided medical attention to her right away, our partners in Fire Rescue. Once she regained consciousness, we got her version of events, which are consistent with her injuries, identified the perpetrator, in this case, her domestic partner who had battered her. So now we knew who he was. We had to find him. We went out, located him. We did find him subsequently, and ultimately, we did arrest him for the domestic violence to this female, and she was battered, choked and to the point she was unconscious. So just a sad, sad situation to see these things escalate to these levels, that people that say they love each other, but yet they’re doing this is hard to fathom.”
There was a domestic case where a female attacked a male that also happened recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Domestic violence goes both ways. We think of domestic violence, we generally think males battering females, which happens a lot, but the counter does also occur. A domestic violence report came in about a domestic violence call on a vessel moored off, anchored off of Wisteria Island, the male after being battered, he indicated he went to shore, called us, and he indicated while on the boat, the female was very violent, was pushing, shoving, threatening him, punched him in the face, got a kitchen knife, threatened to kill him. He escaped the vessel, got to shore, called us, but we did find him. He had clear signs of domestic violence upon him. He had injuries consistent with being punched in the face and other related stuff. So after taking that report, we did ultimately identify the female, locate her and arrest her as the perpetrator in this domestic violence charge for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery on her partner. So again, it goes both ways. Males and females can both be the aggressor or the victims.”
A 1988 case just had some resolution where advanced genetic and DNA methods positively identified an individual who was deceased in 1988.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This was on County Road 905 in the north end of the county as you’re heading to Miami. A person had located a deceased individual who was wrapped in plastic close to the Dade County line, and at the time, we clearly believed this was a homicide. It was assigned a homicide. We did not identify the person. Had no ID on them. We had no reported people missing, that we could identify this to be the same person. So it’s gone as an open case of what we call a cold case, all these years, believing a homicide took place clearly, but no person or any leads to go on. So as cold cases go on, we continue to try to be vigilant to look for new technologies, new ways of identifying the person. So many new technologies right now with genealogy, a lot of this ability to track family members has really been kind of a catalyst which has helped law enforcement in so many different ways. We continue to resubmit DNA as we can on cases, and this case, we were able to eventually locate, identify the person through genealogy of who this person was, because now we know who the victim is, and now we can move on to try to work the case from here. But this was a male who, after being identified, was from the Miami Dade County area. Now we can get some closure to the family, who for 38 years have not heard or seen from this person, not knowing he was dead or alive or what took place, whatever happened. So obviously, it’s a sad situation, at least they know now that this person is deceased, they can have a service or some celebration of life all these years later, and we continue with a cold case. It’s become more difficult and challenging as time goes on, but we continue to hold this as an active case.”
A dead crocodile was near US Naval Station, Key West, recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Most times we do have alligators or crocodiles are more likely to be in the north end, closer than Everglades, yeah. But this was a saltwater crocodile. There are saltwater crocodiles that reside on Naval Air Station Key West in some of the ponds. This was by Boca Chica Road, US 1 in the Boca Chica area and the Naval Air Station. It was about a nine foot crocodile that attempted to cross the road, was struck and killed. So sad as it is, but then it has to be picked up. FWC sent out a vehicle, a civilian came out from FWC, and they’re trying to load this. So you can’t load this by yourself. So several officers saw this, stopped to render aid, one being one of my Lower Keys patrol sergeants. One, being a Key West police motor officer, and then myself. We stopped to see what we could do to help. They’ve got to put a crocodile on a backboard, strap it down, and get this thing loaded to the back of the truck. So, very, very sad situation. But obviously everybody coming together trying to help aid and assist in a difficult situation, but there are saltwater crocodiles that do reside in some of those ponds out in that area.”
Is it any kind of an infraction for striking wildlife with a car?
Sheriff Ramsay said, “No, it’s just an accident. There’s no intent to harm, injury or kill, so you’re not going to get in trouble for that. We want people to tell us, because we don’t want you to hit it and have it either suffering. We like the notion that we can come out there and put it down as misery, or if it is able to be saved to render aid to the animal and also to get it off the road so someone else doesn’t hit it and swerve and crash trying to swerve around something in the middle of the road. So anytime you strike an animal, whether it be a key deer, or in this case, a crocodile or something else, a dog, cat, whatever. You want to notify the authorities. You’re not going to get in trouble. But we don’t want it suffering. We want to render aid, and we don’t want it to be a traffic hazard for others and cause a crash. Use good, common sense. When in doubt, call 911, tell us. And then if we need to redirect you to the civilian line, we will. But we want to get resources out there, if it’s in the middle of the road for obvious reasons, as soon as we can.”
Shots were fired around the Card Sound Road Bridge recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is at the very north end up by Alabama Jacks. We got a report after midnight about shots fired, constant shots being fired. So Alabama Jacks is pretty close to there, as well as people fishing in the area. So we responded out there. And we got on scene, we got a report of three individuals who were left in a car heading towards Monroe. We saw on the ground where they were reported shooting, a handgun. We located 36 shell casings. We did stop the car on 905, heading into the Upper Keys. We identified three people from Miami involved in the car. We located a handgun in the car. We ultimately determined that all three have been taking times shooting this gun in the open air, public areas. All three were charged with discharging a weapon in public. You just can’t start shooting rounds. What goes up comes down. What hits the water, ricochets, what goes into a potential mangrove area. You don’t know if someone’s on the other side fishing or in a boat, or standing or camping. So it’s not a gun range just to be openly shooting stuff with no type of backstop to stop rounds from going somewhere. So we did confiscate the weapon and charge all three with discharging a weapon in public. Our plan is to try to get the public so they don’t do stupid stuff, and if they get the inclination to do it anyway, then yes, I always say you’re more likely to be held accountable in Monroe. You’re more likely to get arrested, charged, convicted, and have longer sentences in Monroe, between myself and the state attorney, who have the same platform, we both think alike when it comes to being hard on crime and putting messages out. We don’t want people to do it. We educate, educate, warn, warn, but if you cross boundaries, we will hold you accountable here.”