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 62-year-old man from Germany passed away in the water recently from a snorkeling accident.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “You think about the number of people that are in the waters, the number of snorkel boat trips that go out, and a lot of these people are maybe a little bit older, maybe not in good shape. In the water, you can get panicked very easy. You can gulp a little bit of salt water and really get freaked out. So, it’s not uncommon for people to have a heart attack or stroke, maybe salt water drowning. So, it is difficult, but this is the 62 year old male on vacation from Germany, in Key Largo, out on a reputable dive boat, snorkel boat. They’re out with beautiful conditions, no issues with the conditions. And after about 10 minutes in the water, they noticed that he was face down, not moving. Crew members went out to him, found him nonresponsive. Rescue swam him back to the boat. They immediately started CPR, contacted 911 at Coast Guard, had 911 services on standby. They rushed him in, but unfortunately he succumbed to the drowning and was pronounced deceased upon arrival at the shoreline, so sad. I believe there was a family member with him, so notification was done quickly by a member on scene, which is so traumatic as it is to have a loss of a life, let alone see someone unconscious, unresponsive CPR being done, that really just makes it a that much more horrific situation to witness it, but sad situation for sure.”
A Cudjoe Key Florida man was arrested last week for murder in the death of his 62-year-old wife. She was found unconscious on a hallway floor with injuries to the face, head, and hands.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I’ve talked to you and your listeners over the years, and always tell you every two to three years there’s going to be a murder in Monroe County, but when it happens, it’s going to be domestic related, drug related, or homeless related. None of which are okay, but these are not random acts of someone being attacked at their home by a stranger. This was a domestic matter. This was a married couple who had been married for a period of time. These were middle-aged persons, late 50s, 60s, thereabouts. So we’re living down in the Cudjoe Key area, a nice community neighborhood. Both were employed. The victim was a nurse. The male was an entertainer. So at some point in time, we can’t get into much details because it’s an ongoing investigation, but they had gone out to dinner and drinks earlier, went back home, and then there’s a period of time at the house where it appears to be that there was a violent altercation inside the residence. At some point in time, the male left the residence to a neighbor’s wrapped in a towel only and had told the neighbor to call 911, didn’t get into what or why. We arrived, we went inside, we noticed a violent crime scene, we noticed the victim, who was in dire straits, was unconscious and abnormal breathing. We had our friends in fire rescue respond immediately. She was critical, brought to Lower Keys Medical, where a couple hours later she expired. This was a crime scene, so once we took care of the victim, we exited out of the home to secure it, to get a warrant, search warrant to continue the criminal investigation inside. So, after getting a search warrant signed, we did do a search of the home, collect the evidence, photography, video of the crime scene. The male was not very cooperative, but at the point we believe we have probable cause that he committed the crime, and we did arrest him for a murder charge. So he’s in MCJ on a charge of murder.”
This will be an ongoing criminal investigation.
Sheriff Ramsay continued, “There’s a lot of work to these type of cases, a lot of forensic work, lab work, put the pieces of the puzzle together. Medical examiner is an integral part, obviously, to determine the cause and to work with the sheriff’s office on blunt force trauma, determining what that instrument of brutality may have been, and again trying to come to the ultimate conclusion of what caused the ultimate loss of life, so our partner at the Medical Examiner is so, so critical in these investigations, but this will be a joint cooperative effort between the Medical Examiner, Sheriff’s Office, State Attorney’s Office, FDA League Crime Lab. A lot of people are going to come together to make sure we have a good, solid, strong case, and we can hold this person accountable for this violent act, and just a sad, sad situation. I went to the scene myself, something serious like this, I’m always going to, if I’m able to respond to the scene. I was there, my colonel was there, my district captain, lieutenant, so this is an unusual anomaly, and such an important matter that our top command staff is on scene to make sure that we’re being briefed and given direction as need be to making sure we can do the best we can for the victims.”
A woman from Miami was arrested for drug and ammunition possession following a traffic stop recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “So many of these calls we keep telling you are somehow traffic related. The number one call we get is traffic, so not uncommon on these traffic stops to come across warrants and drugs and other related stuff here, but this is a case of woman down here, which appears to be more than personal use, appears to be someone who’s trying to sell drugs in the Keys, and we’re not going to tolerate that. So it’s good by our officers to be proactive to deal with these cases, get these people off the streets, but we’re talking guns and ammunition and drugs, especially those are really, really important issues to us to get off the Keys. So we’re always happy with my officers are doing a good job on these type of cases, and these are difficult, challenging days on the road to patrol all time.”
A woman from Islamorada was arrested at another traffic stop for having a whole lot of drugs.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Clearly, this is a drug dealer, and some of the more violent drugs that she’s in possession are more likely to kill person or persons, so we’re always concerned about drug dealing as it is, but especially when we’re dealing with drugs like fentanyl, we deal with methamphetamines, we deal with some of those really more violent drugs that can do such damage, those are that much more important to us, so again, it’s not just males, we think drug dealers, we think a lot of time are men, but we’re seeing more last year or two, I’ve seen more and more women that seem to be using and dealing drugs. Historically, it’s been more of a male predominant crime, but we have been seeing the uptick of women who are dealing drugs, and again, most of the time we talk about these, they’re coming from Miami-Dade County. Most of our drug dealers that come to the county arrive out of Miami, they come to the Keys to sling drugs. People think that sometimes the drugs come in by boat and then are dispersed here. The reality is when you have drug smuggling, the kilos are generally almost always taken to Miami-Dade County, and then they’re broken up and turned into street-level drugs, and then brought back down. So we see most of our drugs that are in the Keys do come from Miami-Dade County, and most of our drug dealers that we do arrest our Miami-Dade County residents who are dealing drugs in Dade, but also are dealing drugs in Monroe, and we continue to try to send that strong message. I talk to you every week, your listeners, about you’re more likely to get caught, arrested, prosecuted here, and the penalties are going to be more severe in Monroe than they generally are in Dade, and we’re trying to keep sending a message that this is not the place to commit crimes, and if you do, you are going to pay the price ultimately. And this person’s in MCJ, is going to be held accountable by our state attorney, and is going to spend the time here in our jail if she doesn’t wind up in prison, but we’re not going to tolerate this type of activity here in Monroe.”
A man from Key West called 911 multiple times a week ago, profanely complaining about law enforcement, and threatened to kill officers. He was subsequently arrested and charged with threatening to kill law enforcement officers, battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest, disorderly intoxication, and misuse of 911.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This was a 33 year old man out of Key West, who misused 911, had called our 911 dispatch center to go on a rant about how much he hated cops, and cops sucked and were scum, and just going off left and right, and clearly was not a 911 emergency. Phone was disconnected. After some period of time, he contacted 911 again, again long rant threatening officers and having just nothing but bad things to say. We were able to eventually track down the phone and identify who the person was and where they were at. We went out with that person and the person was intoxicated, was violent, continued the rant of threats, immediately became aggressive with the officers. This person was ultimately charged with resisting arrest with violence, disorderly intoxication, making threats to kill police officers. So he was booked in the jail on multiple felony charges, battery on law enforcement officer, misuse of 911, so he had a lot of charges here that we are holding him accountable for, and it just continues to show you how difficult and challenging this job can be, and some of the crap that our officers have to put up with, it’s a tough, challenging job. It’s not for everybody, and we say they don’t do it to get rich, they do it because they want to make this community the best it can be. And with that comes dealing with a lot of crap heads.”
Another snorkeling related death happened last week near Mule Key off of Key West. A commercial diving company reported at 1:30pm an unresponsive female in the water. She was a 63 year old woman from Madison, Mississippi.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is sad. Down on vacation, 63 year old female down with family on a reputable snorkel boat, down off Mule Key. Weather conditions were favorable again, was in the water at some point in time, was face down, was brought on board the boat. 911 services were contacted, Coast Guard, our friends, responded. CPR was administered right away. This person did not make it. This person has a history of cardiac events. Her treating physician did sign off on this being a cardiac event, that this was a person who had a strong medical history, which at that point in time, if you have a cardiac history and you’re 63 years old and are not in the water on a regular basis, sometimes it’s maybe not the best decision, but we can’t go back now. Unfortunately, this person did not make it. Again, signed off by a doctor as a cardiac event in the water, which we say snorkeling itself, let alone scuba diving, even snorkeling can be a very stressful event for a lot of people, so it’s not for everybody. It has to be based on your health, your abilities, and it’s just, it’s sad. We see the numbers, but we keep saying they’re literally just tens of thousands of people that snorkel here in the Keys every year. We shouldn’t be surprised that every now and then someone doesn’t make it, whether it be a snorkeling or even scuba diving, stressful, stressful situations.”
Driftwood Pizza in Marathon was presented with a certificate of appreciation for their continued support of MCSO.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’re so honored and blessed to have the community to support us the way they do. We talk about on your show so much, how important it is to have these relationships and partnerships, not only internal but external. This is no different. This is part of our Citizens Police Academy. We had a few sponsors, Key West Cakes, we had Driftwood Pizza, the City of Marathon, so we have people that want to come out and want to be part of something so good. So Driftwood Pizza did donate the pizzas for the graduation that night, so it’s important to me to go out and identify and acknowledge these people and shake their hand and thank them personally and give them a certificate. Tony, the owner of Driftwood Pizza, he was saying, you don’t have to be here, we always support you, whatever you guys need. I said, nope, this is important, to come out and make sure that we truly appreciate you and what you do and how much you do for this community and the sheriff’s office. Those personal contacts are so important at all levels that I wanted to come out and acknowledge and take that picture and thank them for everything, so that was my hats off to Driftwood Pizza, Tony and his crew there again for being part of something so good.”