Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
This morning saw a lot of accidents in the Keys.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This was a busy day, a lot of crashes, unfortunately, we’re glad that the injuries are relatively minor in nature, but we just had back to back, back to back crashes. We had one at the 10 Mile Marker, and then right after that, as soon as we got that road cleared, with the cars on the shoulder and trying to deal with that crash, then we had a result, a crash of the Nine Mile Marker. Not uncommon when you have one crash to have other crashes as a result of traffic slowing, stopping, or people rubber necking. So it pulled a lot of police sources there and Police, Fire Rescue to be at two locations within a mile stretch. We’re always worried about trying to get that traffic into Key West in the morning. So it’s really difficult, challenging time. And while that was going on, we had a crash in the south end of Marathon and then minutes later, 80th Street had another crash in Marathon. So they had to pull the ground ambulance units from Grassy Key station 15. So we just had police tied up with this, fire rescue tied up with this and trying to keep traffic flowing, people are trying to get to work. So it was definitely a challenging morning for MCSO, for sure.”
A young teen was injured by a boat recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “That was a 13 year old young lady who was in the Lower Keys on a family boat. She was in the water, and the family boat struck her, and she had a large propeller strike to the right upper leg. So a very severe injury. They had to put a tourniquet to stop the severe bleeding. She was rushed in. She was immediately put on the sheriff’s office Trauma Star helicopter. We immediately air evacced her out to what most people know to be Miami Children’s, which is now Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. So her injuries are very severe in nature, not life threatening, but you’re talking about potential removing of a leg, or severe injuries to a leg and permanent disfigurement, scarring is a going to be there for sure with that type of a strike. A sad, sad case we see so many times when we do have boat strikes on persons, a good part of time, it’s the operator of the boat from someone who came from their boat because they’re losing sight and they’re getting just panicked. So we don’t get much update once we drop them off because of HIPAA, other related stuff, we’re not entitled that information, and nor do we want to know people’s personal information. The only good thing out of this appears to be that it was not life threatening, but it was definitely a critical injury, and we’re thank God that we had the trauma helicopter to get the highest level of care possible, to try to save her leg or reduce pain and suffering.”
On Sunday, a 43 year old Key West man was harassing other residents, and then he was harassing, kicking, resisting arrest from a sheriff’s office deputy.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This was on Stock Island Front Street. This was, a 43 year old male from Key West on Front Street who was causing a disturbance. Key West Police was the first on scene, and we went to back them up. This male had, right before we got there, was out yelling racial slurs, throwing rocks at persons, rocks at vehicles, rocks at residents. So by the time we got there, he had gone back into a van, was in a van, and would not come out. Officers giving lawful commands trying to get him to come out. He refused. They had to physically get the door open and physically grab a hold of him and take him out of the vehicle. He was extremely agitated from the beginning, before we got there, while we’re there, and continued on. He was resisting verbal commands and even physical abilities to try to restrain him. He was pulling, twisting, turning, kicking, kicked an officer. His violence continued on at the scene, in the patrol car and at the jail. At the jail, we had to put him what’s called a restraint chair, which restrains his legs, arms, so he can’t kick attack hurt himself or anybody else. So a very violent individual, which is, unfortunately, something we have to deal with on a regular basis, people that are just violent towards others and even our officers here. So we appreciate the partnership with our friends in Key West Police, going back and forth, trying to help aid and assist each agency. Make sure we’re all safe. Make sure the men and women all go home at the end of their shifts. Make sure we put bad people where they need to be, at the Rick Ramsay bed and breakfast, and that’s where he’s at.”
A person reported 23 kilograms of cocaine washed up on the shore recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’re always thankful for citizens who do the right thing and turn this in and it also keeps the mystery and the discussions about Keys drug smuggling alive. This was 23 kilos. That’s just over 50 pounds of pure, uncut cocaine. We’re talking millions and millions of dollars worth of street level drugs. So we’re thankful again that it was turned over. They bring it in, and they’ll analyze it, and they’ll try to determine how long it’s been in the water, what markings are on the packages. They’ll try to determine origin of where the product came from, maybe a cartel may have come from. They’ll try to tie in how long it’s been in water based any intelligence they may have for any suspected loads or drugs that they thought were coming in. Maybe some people wonder how they wind up in the water. Sometimes it could be on a boat who could be bringing drugs in, and they may see on their radar unit, or hear or see a boat coming up from behind. They may get scared and think it’s police and just jettison the loads because they concerned that they’re going to get in trouble. Sometimes it could be an offload. Sometimes drugs are offloaded from a mother ship to smaller ships boats to be brought in. Sometimes it’s the middle of night time when these offloads occur. It’s not uncommon when you’re loading large amounts of heavy packages on a moving boat from one moving boat to another, it may slip, fall in the water. So there’s plenty of reasons why you could see drugs in the water, but generally what this means is, this is a small portion of a larger load. Drug smuggling is alive and well.”
A 34-year-old Key Largo man was arrested on Thursday for sexual assault of a female juvenile, charged with lewd and lascivious behavior and kidnapping plus false imprisonment.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “These are always sad situations, sad cases. But this is a case where the male had talked to two females, trying to build some type of rapport and then one went into the bathroom. This was, we believe, a semi consensual with the adult male, I think about 20 and like a 16 year old girl, stories varied. Stories changed a little bit. There was a witness to what took place, and we had to do a lot of follow up investigation. There was some video of the individuals both going into the bathroom together. So it’s an ongoing investigation. But in this day there is lot of sad sick people in this world that we have to really keep on top of and stop these type of issues from occurring. These are difficult cases for detectives. Anytime we’re dealing with juveniles and sexual related cases, these are some of the most difficult cases because most detectives have kids and can relate to this being their kids, so these are trouble cases to work, but also we’ve got to be vigilant and hold people accountable and stop this type of behavior.”
National Night Out will be held tomorrow at four locations in the Keys – in Key West, Marathon, Key Lago and Islamorada.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “What a great partnership with our state, local, federal, military partners come out and show their assets and the ability to talk to citizens and build these relationships, these partnerships, are so critical. So we make it a good, fun night. We want to know the citizens. We want them to know us. If the citizens know us, they’re probably going to like us, trust us and respect us, but if they don’t know us, it’s hard to like us, trust us and respect us. So we want to make sure that we have these friendships built early before something may happen bad in someone’s life, and we can be there as a friend, showing up to help them through a difficult time in their life. It will be music, there’ll be fun, entertainment, different activities out there. There’ll be food and drink and good times. We do this every year for parts of the county. The one in the Truman Waterfront will be a partnership with Key West Police. We’ll be doing this one together. The other three locations are done by the sheriff’s office, with our partners showing up to present some of their assets. But this is very manpower intensive to do in one location, let alone four, but we’ve got citizens in so many parts of this county that we can’t expect to drive 40 miles to come to an event, so we’ve got to bring the event to each and every neighborhood. So it’s a good event. We appreciate all the friends who come out to be part of it. We appreciate all the citizens come out to enjoy it and forever build these relationships, which are just so critical for public safety.”