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 burglary in Pigeon Key recently saw someone scale a fence and terrorize a person who lives out there.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We know that on the Old Seven Mile Bridge, it’s two and a half miles to get out there by the trolley. A lot of people walk and run that bridge during the course of the evenings, but Pigeon Key is shut down at a certain time of night. They close the gate over to keep people from going on to the island. And there is a caretaker who lives on the island, and at times, people stay in the buildings there for research or other related stuff. So we had the caretaker on the property. I think some other people were staying in some of the cottages, some younger people, like 18, 19 year olds that were there for some adventures, and about 1:15, the motion censorl light on top of the bridge kicked off, which would indicate, potentially, someone jumped the fence and had triggered the motion sensor. So the caretaker saw the light and was concerned. Soon thereafter, saw a person that was walking around, lurking around the island. They called 911, which is great, but that’s a long response to get out to Pigeon Key. So while they’re waiting for us to respond. This person’s shaking doors, trying to open doors. They came up to the door where the caretaker and his girlfriend reside, trying to get into the house. So they were really scared, really concerned for their well being at this point in time, not knowing, you’re out there in the middle of nowhere, what’s going on? Who’s out there? We get on the island and the person, we can’t find him initially, but we know he’s there because the only way to get out is either jump in the ocean or go back across the bridge, which they couldn’t because we were there. So we searched the island. It’s not well lit, so we’re using flashlights looking under the buildings. We eventually found them hiding under one of the buildings. And this is a 37 year old male from Key West who had gone out there, and when we found him, had stolen a cell phone, cell phone charger and appeared to be looking for crimes of opportunity. I don’t know if he didn’t think anybody lived out there after hours, thought he could just go to the buildings or what he was thinking, but we did arrest him for burglary and grand theft. So obviously this is very unusual for Pigeon Key. Sent kind of a shockwave to the Pigeon Key board and the foundation as no one’s ever really expected someone to be trying to break into the buildings after hours out there. So a little unusual, but we did a good job to get there quickly, find the person, arrest them, hold them accountable.”
A Lake City Florida man came to the Keys on a stolen motorcycle recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is just going to continue to say how difficult and challenging and dangerous the job as a police officer is anywhere. We were looking for this motorcycle, which was stolen from Jacksonville, believed to be in the Keys. One of my traffic enforcement sergeants, and another patrol officer, spotted the motorcycle. They stopped initially, and they went out with the driver, and as they tried to deal with the driver, he became extremely violent, wanting to get away, wanting to flee. It turned into a brawl. This person was very violent. He was punching, kicking, thrashing about. The officers had to use pepper spray and later had to use a taser to try to control this individual. Between tasers, pepper spray and physical force, once they finally get him handcuffed, they’re trying to get him in the patrol car, he’s still kicking at the deputies, kicking at the patrol car. Got close to the patrol car, and then just started kicking and destroying the car, did about $2,000 worth of damage to the door. The door wouldn’t close right. So he got charged with battery on law enforcement officers, resisting arrest with violence, criminal mischief, Grand Theft Auto. We did find on his person and on his possessions, multiple credit cards from multiple different people. We found several different person’s identification. So obviously we believe this person is stealing people’s property, using their identities, trying to use their credit cards and trying to avoid payment for stuff by way of other people’s means. So that’ll be an ongoing investigation between the sheriff office here in Monroe and those jurisdictions that we can track back down those owners of those IDs where they may have been lost or stolen from to see what the jurisdictional stuff there is, and if those credit cards were used, then who’s got the jurisdiction to charge them with those credit card thefts? So a really dangerous person. This is a violent individual, middle of the daytime, 35 year old male from Lake City, Florida.”
A 66 year old man from Florida was arrested last week after swinging a machete at another man.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This could have turned deadly so quickly. It’s amazing, no one got seriously hurt. Yeah, a 66 year old male live aboard on his vessel, had at the time, a friend over and sometime while out there, got into an argument, which turned into a violent argument. It turned into the 66 year old male arming himself with a machete and then multiple times swinging, trying to strike this other person. Thank God he didn’t make impact. This other person was able to flee the vessel, get to shore, contact law enforcement, tell us what happened. We had to then go out there and investigate and determine that we believe it did take place, which we did. We did arrest this person for an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. So thank God this person didn’t get killed or serious bodily injury out there. But things can happen pretty quickly, even when it’s two people who one second are friends, then a minute or two later can be mortal enemies.”
A Key West man who was a live aboard was arrested last week after exposing himself to two women and using crude language just off of Stock Island, and charged with indecent assault.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This person apparently has been kind of a problem out there in the past, yelling and screaming at people and just being kind of a jerk. So this is the Boca Chica Bay, a live aboard. Two women on a small little dinghy are going back to their vessel on the way they have to pass by his boat. He gets on the back of the boat, starts yelling and screaming foul language and gestures, drops his pants, exposes himself, continues to make obscene gestures and vulgar comments towards these women. So they contacted the sheriff’s office and reported it. Ultimately, we did arrest this individual for indecent exposure. This behavior is so unacceptable and so sad to see people acting so stupid, childish. But we did arrest him. He’s in the Rich Ramsay Bed and Breakfast. We’re going to hold him accountable and continue to send a message that this type of behavior will not be accepted.”
A credit card fraud case in Crane Point Hammock happened recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This was a 48 year old male who lives out of state, normally was down here and was doing some handyman work for the foundation, was working out there as a handyman. To be a handyman, you have to be able to go to Home Depot and pick up supplies and stuff as you’re working. So Crane Point Hammock keeps a credit card on file at Home Depot, and this male had, at times, bought some stuff legally for the job site, but later on, when the bill came in, they saw a lot of charges that had nothing to do with Crane Point Hammock. After they reported it to the sheriff’s office, we did a comprehensive investigation, did an audit of the bills and what was purchased, and we believed about 20 times he went in, used their credit card to buy personal stuff, personal tools, personal stuff for himself, and was using their credit card for his personal gain. So we ultimately did what’s called a probable cause affidavit, an application for a warrant before the courts for 20 counts of credit card fraud. In this case, the victim being Crane Point Hammock. So he was arrested on these multiple charges, and we’re going to hold him accountable for these actions.”
There’s also a new scam with Apple Pay, where people are being contacted by text or phone with the claim that they are being charged by Apple Pay for pornography site usage and they’re asked to call a person to answer the charges.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a newer one. Got sent to us last week from a young lady who had something come across, saying it was Apple Pay, saying that they were receiving porn, and there was a charge. And went back and said, if you dispute these charges, contact this number. So what they’re doing is trying to scare you into something and trying to get you to make contact with them. Ultimately, when you make contact is when they try to get your information and to try to steal your charges. So they misuse and represent themselves to scare people about porn to get you to contact them to then get your information, trying to say they’re trying to help you, but really they’re trying to just scam you. So this is another effort just to steal people’s money. We have to be vigilant and continue to work on this type of stuff and warn people about this type of stuff. So this continues to be a problem. We want you to contact us. Don’t give information to these people. When in doubt, just hang up. When in doubt, call somebody else.”