Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM yesterday morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
A kilo of cocaine was found recently at Hawks Cay.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a story for the future to tell their kids and something they can talk about found in the fabulous Florida Keys. We know this is a big area for drug smuggling and trafficking and whatnot. This individual was walking the beach up there at Hawks Cay and while walking the beach of Hawks Cay, they found a package on the beach, and they were not sure what it was initially, and on closer inspection, they thought maybe it was drugs. They called the sheriff’s office. We came out and it was actually a kilo of cocaine, which had floated up on the little beach there at Hawks Cay. So kind of an exciting day for them that they’ll be telling the kids and grandkids about, and it continues to keep the mystery and the nostalgia of drug smuggling in the Keys alive, and tells us in law enforcement that it still exists, that they’re still bringing the cocaine in through the Caribbean into the Keys, and it’s a good message for our federal partners that this is still happening.”
A motorcyclist was arrested following a pursuit recently. The man was from Little Torch Key and was charged with resisting arrest and other multiple traffic violations.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Two of my traffic enforcement motor officers were on the road heading northbound. They saw the motorcycle coming southbound, and they went to a turn to stop the motorcycle for traffic charges. Apparently, the motorcycle stopped for a second and then took off. We had a short pursuit. Speeds got up to about 98 miles an hour. At some point in time, our officers called off the pursuit for safety reasons. It was an orange motorcycle, a white male driver, higher handlebars, had a pack on the back of the motorcycle. So pretty distinct. We put a BOBO, be on the lookout for. It was southbound. This is from the 66 mile marker. We had units coming out of Marathon who were coming north, met up the other units going south, and the motorcycle disappeared. So we kind of figured out it was a small geographic area in Grassy Key that had to ditch off in. So we brought up a lot of patrol units and started saturating the neighborhood. We eventually found the motorcycle back in Grassy Key, bayside, back in the Bailey Street area. We located the motorcycle, located the driver eventually. The driver did not have a motorcycle endorsement, apparently, just bought the motorcycle off a marketplace and was bringing it home to Little Torch where he lives. This is a 38 year old male. So we did charge him for a felony, fleeing, looting, resisting charges, no driver’s license. You just you get yourself in more trouble then just stopping and taking your medicine, you would have got stopped. You would have not had a motorcycle endorsement. Okay, big deal. You would have got up to the DHSME this week, got your motorcycle endorsement, showed the courts that you had an endorsement now. You would have got a slap on the wrist. It would have been over, and then you’d be legally able to operate a motorcycle. But for every action there is a reaction and you make your situation worse sometimes, and it just doesn’t go away. So just dumb, but that’s what we deal with. We deal with dumb, stupid, poor behavior, which is job security for their law enforcement.”
A man out of Satellite Beach, Florida was arrested Friday for defrauding an Islamorada couple. They were seeking a home addition and paid $4,000 to this individual. He did not pull permits, he did not complete the project, and hence he’s been charged with fraud.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’ve seen a lot of this contractor fraud. We’ve seen a lot of times people will get a contractor or someone who says they’re a contractor, and will pay them a down payment, 50% down, whatever it may be, and then they never hear from the person again. The person doesn’t do anything. So this is not uncommon, but this individual presented himself to be a contractor and was going to do a home improvement and an expansion at a home in Islamorada and they had paid him, and this was the final payment, the final $4,000 payment that he needed to do the job, and once they made the final $4,000 payment, they never heard or saw from him again. They checked and couldn’t get ahold of him. Called us. We checked, found out no permits have ever been pulled or even applied for, which shows clear intent. One of our first things to do is see if someone attempted to get the permits and put plans in place. Knowing that we identified the individual who’s from Satellite Beach, and this was a 43 year old male. We ultimately didn’t get warrants for him for larceny and fraud. We’re going to hold these people accountable, and we’re going to try to protect our citizens, and we’re going to keep trying to send a message that you just can’t get away with this in this county. Some other counties would say, oh, that’s just civil. Contact your attorney to deal with it, but it is a crime, and we are going to deal with it, and we try to take the response to calls for service different here, that we’re not going to shrug it off. We’re not going to push it off on somebody else. We’re not going to push off on civil or your attorney to deal with it if we believe there’s a criminal case that can be made. Our job is to investigate, prevent these things from occurring to other people, hold people accountable and get some restitution, some closure for the victims of these type of cases.”
A man tried to rob Keys Federal Credit Union on Stock Island on Friday.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This was a 61 year old male came into the Keys Federal Credit Union in Stock Island, threw a bag at the teller, demanded money. Obviously, the tellers are generally told don’t argue, don’t risk yourself. Just give them the money. At some point in time, they activated the panic alarm, and he was aware that law enforcement was notified, and he had the bag of money, and he apparently said something to effect that he’d be outside waiting for us. So he’d been arrested before. He’s a local in our jail, and I saw a picture of him, looked like an average person you would see down the road, not think twice about. He was dressed half decent, didn’t look homeless. So I’m not really sure what the nexus was. I’m presuming, for whatever reason, he wanted to get re-arrested, wanted to go back to jail. Sometimes, it’s not uncommon for people who are in jail on a regular basis to almost become co-dependent on the structure of a jail, someone to feed them three times a day, give them a place to sleep, watch TV, unusual as it is. Again, this is not a homeless individual, which we’re more likely to see maybe trying to get back into jail. So his exact motive at the end, it’s unclear whether he wanted the money, and was going to for whatever reason, he decided not to run, not to go, but just wait for us. We did recover the bag of money that he had. The money was returned back to the bank. They were very excited and ecstatic. We did contact our friends at FBI and notify them to see if they want to pursue any federal charges, because obviously, bank robbery is a federal crime as well as potential state charges. Haven’t heard back. Right now we’ve charged them under state law. If the federal government decides to charge them under bank robbery laws for federal government, they can certainly take the case from us. But unusual, but our response time is so fast. We have a unit on Stock Island. We were there in matter of no time. He’s back in the Rick Ramsey Bed and Breakfast in our care, custody, and control.”
A Big Pine, Florida woman was arrested for intentionally drowning a dog and was arrested again last week for burglary of the SPCA, where she was trying to gain access to the dogs who were taken from her.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “The last time we talked about it, she killed the puppy, beautiful little dog. So we did arrest her for that, but also because she had animals in her home, we contacted our friends at the SPCA, and because of the violent act against an animal, they take these animals in the house into protective custody so the courts can determine whether she can care for animals. Well, she gets in jail, she bonds out, and as soon as she bonds out, she has her husband drive her to SPCA in Marathon. I’m understanding, he was not supportive. Did not think this was a good idea, but for some reason, did it anyway. He gets there, and she gets out of the car, she puts up some garbage cans. She’s trying to climb the fence. They’ve got surveillance footage of this. While she’s doing that, apparently, her husband calls us and says, hey, I told her not to do it, but she’s jumping the fence at the SPCA, so her husband dimes her out. We’ve got good surveillance video of her trying to climb the fence. This 60 something year old woman gets to the top, falls over the fence, falls to the ground. It’s like a clown show. Then she gets up and she’s walking around the property. She’s walking back to the back kennels, trying to look for her puppies. She’s trying to pry the door open. Then she winds up putting up crates, does stuff, climbing back over and out of the fence, and leaves. So we get a hold of the SPCA. They come out. They’re aware of her. They know who this woman is. They pull surveillance footage. We see the footage is pretty crystal clear of who it is. We know who it is because we just arrested her. They identify her as knowing her. We’ve got the video of her burglarizing, coming on the property, trying to commit a crime therein, damaging property. So we eventually go up and pick her up and arrest her for burglary and criminal mischief and put her right back in jail. So not the smartest woman. I’m not sure what’s going on with her, whether it’s mental health or whether it’s just age, but something seems to be up with this woman. Obviously her acts when she first killed this puppy were so heinous, but we just can’t let her have these animals until the courts again, can determine and believe that she’s able to properly care for them, not going to kill these animals or not take care of them. So it’s just something we see in law enforcement each and every day. We deal with crimes against persons and children and animals, and we see sad stuff all the time. It’s a difficult, challenging job to see, and some of the stuff we have to deal with and see.”
Resource violations also continue to occur.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We actually took that one person to jail with the undersized mutton snappers because he had multiple, I think he had like five and also he had no fishing license. So it shows the intent that you don’t even have a license to even try to fish, no measuring devices, no efforts to try to comply with laws, rules, regulations. So the patrol officer made the decision that he probably needed to take the ride to jail versus getting a notice to appear. Then the other one was the parrot fish. You’re not allowed to take parrot fish and he was cited, given notice to appear the week before we had a fish case, we had a yellow tail that was smaller than a palm of your hand. The entire fish, from head to tail was inside the palm of your hand. We just keep seeing these attacks on our environment. This is just poaching. We just keep saying we’re just going to keep doing our part to help out our friends at FWC try to protect these resources so they’ll be here for future generations. Make sure they’re here for the current generations to go out and recreational fish and commercial fishing because we deal with lobster and stone crab and fish, you name it, we’re dealing throughout the year with these poaching and we want to make sure our commercial fishermen and our visitors who come here to fish, and our locals who fish, to catch fish for dinner that night, and kids and grandkids to get taught how to fish, that there’s something to catch.”
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and the Key West Police Department do offer safe zones for transactions from Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We want for everybody, no matter what it may be, to come by there and feel safe and secure. If there is a problem that we have, someone can come out right away and deal with it. Not uncommon to have scams involved in these online purchases, not knowing who you’re meeting, exchanging money. If somebody gets robbed, this doesn’t generally happen here, but it could. So these are means, just to make sure you feel more safe, that it’s more likely to be a safe and a good transaction if someone knows you’re meeting in the sheriff’s office parking lot. They’re probably legit to come up and bring whatever it is they’re selling to you. If they won’t meet you there, then you’ve got to have the red flags pop up that the reason they don’t want to meet at a substation. So these are just to make it safe and secure for everybody, the buyer and the seller. And these are just part of our part of just crime prevention and quality of life and feeling safe and secure in our community. I just want to wish our listeners and you and your family, everybody, a happy and safe Thanksgiving. It’s a busy travel time. 80 million people will be traveling during the holidays, so if you’re going to travel, leave early. Plan ahead. Plan for traffic congestion backups. It’s a busy time to travel, but just be patient, just have a good holiday. Be safe and enjoy the festivities.”
Michael Stapleford of KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM said, “Thank you, sir, and happiest of holidays and Thanksgiving to you and your family. We are very thankful for your dedication and service each and every day in our community. Thank you.”