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 the county.
A number of arrests for drugs have happened recently, even on Christmas Day.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This was a months long drug investigation, and it was part of a cooperative effort, state, local, federal officers working together. The sheriff’s office from our special operations team. We work closely with our friends at Key West police, DEA, HSI, CBP, air marine. We wanted to focus on street level drug dealing of mostly fentanyl and cocaine, and the teams work together did a great job. We made a lot of cases. We got a lot of warrants for a lot of people. Then we had to do a warrant roundup. So we went out to try to find these people and arrest them. And we arrested seven people in the first day. Second day, Key West, PD, arrested an eighth person. Christmas Day, we arrested a ninth. We still have outstanding warrants, but so far, we’ve taken the custody nine drug dealers who were all slinging drugs between Stock Island and the city of Key West, and again, selling fentanyl, cocaine, really dangerous drugs, just putting poison on our streets, destroying people’s lives and families with no regards for anybody’s safety. So we’re good to show the partnership. I always talk to you and your listeners about how important it is to work together as one big team, state, local, federal. I want the citizens to see us working together. Us working together makes us more efficient and more effective. And the same drug dealers that are in the city are in the county and in the county are in the city, and our goal is to put bad people in jail, protect our citizens no matter where they’re at. I want to say great job to all the narcotics agents who worked hard on these cases, to round these people up, to get these charges, get them in my jail, and try to do what we can to curb the drugs on our streets.”
A 46 year old man from Key Largo threatened deputies from a traffic stop recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “It’s unusual. You just never know what’s going to happen. We’re out with what was reported as a domestic situation, a family domestic event inside a car with a possible firearm, we located and stopped the car around Hibiscus Lane. While we’re out doing an investigation on the family the disturbance of domestic matter with a weapon, this 46 year old male from Key Largo was not in the car, was not part of the situation, approached the officers and interjected himself in the situation and started being a very aggressive, foul language, making verbal threats to do bodily harm to police officers on the scene, which drove our attention to be split. Now we’re still having to deal with the active domestic matter involving a firearm in a car, but now we’re also having to deal with a violent individual who’s right behind us, who’s threatening our lives, who refuses to leave and commands. At some point in time, he did leave, but then returned again, and ultimately we had to arrest him for multiple charges, but we always keep saying, you never know what’s going to happen, how fast things change in law enforcement, we think we’re dealing with a domestic matter here with a gun. Next thing we know we’ve got some guy who’s not part of the equation, who comes up and trying to assault our officers for doing their job. So it’s a scary job. Sometimes it’s a very dangerous, difficult, challenging job at best, to keep our citizens safe and secure. But we did arrest him and brought him down to the Rick Ramsay Bed and Breakfast, so he can spend the holidays with us.”
A Marathon man was arrested on Christmas Eve for apparently lifting a woman above his head, and dropping her to the ground.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is the Brass Monkey a local bar in the Marathon area. I always say, not much good happens after midnight, and this is 1:30 in the morning. We get a call about a disturbance at the Brass Monkey, and this guy was extremely intoxicated. He did grab this woman, lift her over his shoulder and dropped her down from a high level position where she sustained minor injuries. But this was definitely an alcohol influence decision, which is generally not going to be a good outcome. So again, we have to come there, deal with this individual who’s extremely intoxicated, who’s just dropped this woman down on the ground. Have to have medical units come to provide medical attention to check her out. But early in the morning calls to bars are very dangerous, very challenging, and people who are intoxicated drinking can turn on you, and you can be the next person that they’re looking to attack within a matter of seconds. So a good job by my team members here dealing with this situation. He was arrested on a variety of charges.”
A drowning happened recently as well.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Unfortunately, we did. Over the weekend, we had a 60 year old male who was with his wife and friends in a private vessel at Sombrero Reef, during the day, enjoying a beautiful day at the reef, snorkeling. At some point in time, they became separated for about 15 minutes. They were trying to locate him. They found him face down in the water next to a personal dinghy. They swam him back to the boat, got him on board the boat called Coast Guard, activated 911 system. They started doing CPR, our friends in Coast Guard, who do such a great job, launched a fast response vessel out of Marathon who headed out to the reef to pick up the person. We activated sheriff’s deputies and Marathon Fire Rescue, and we staged them at the Boot Key where the boat would be coming in with the patient, so we were ready there to receive and deal with the advanced life support situation when they came in. The CPR was continued until Coast Guard arrived. Coast Guard transferred the victim onto the Coast Guard vessel, continued with CPR, rushed them in. Care was transferred over to Marathon Fire Rescue, who determined at the scene, due to the longevity of being underwater, the drowning and the condition that the person was deceased. So the wife was there present to be notified, unfortunately, a sad, sad situation. So the sheriff’s office, then we called out our major crime detectives, we have to make sure this was truly a medical accidental case, which it probably was. There was no signs of foul play, but we still have to do a death investigation. We work with a medical examiner. We have to determine cause. Was this a heart attack or stroke? A mere drowning? Was there a person under any type of pharmaceuticals, narcotics, was there any foul play? So we have to make sure that there was nothing funny going on, that it just was a terrible, sad, unfortunate situation. We have to treat it like a crime scene, just in case, later on, the medical examiner comes back and says, hey, this wasn’t an accident. The person drowned, but they drowned because of this. We have the evidence. We have done all the canvassing, we’ve tried to get our ducks in a row in case it goes from a medical emergency to potential criminal activity or a civil situation.”
A person was recently charged for setting up a makeshift camp near the Key West Golf Club.
Sheriff Ramsay explained, “If there’s a place for someone to go, they cannot camp. If there’s no place for them to go, then they have a right to exist. But they have to be on certain areas, can’t be on private properties and whatnot. There was space available. John Jones, we’ve been out with this individual a couple times in the past for camping on county properties and making a mess and trash and garbage. We’ve warned him several times that he couldn’t be out there, and he had to clean up his mess. He continued to camp on the county properties and just discard garbage. We talked about the John Jones. He was aware of it. Did not like it there. Doesn’t want to be there. So in the end, because he wouldn’t comply and was just trashing our properties on the county, we did give him a notice to appear for illegal camping and trespass, warn him off the county property. So we’ve been working a lot with the county to try to take back these county properties where people have squatted, trash dumped. We’ve talked about massive cleanups on some of these county properties. We’ve got to make sure we protect our environment, not just on the water, but on the land as well. We’re not against people that are homeless. But if you’re homeless, you need to respect the environment, our communities, other people’s properties, and if you make a mess, pick it up. If you don’t, you’re more likely to be held accountable. We just can’t have people that just trash, destroy someone else’s properties, or make messes where taxpayers have to pay to clean up all these properties later on. It’s just not fair. Again, not an attack on homeless people. You want to be homeless. Rock on. A lot of people just want to live their own lifestyle. I’ve got no problem with that, as long as your lifestyle does not adversely impact others.”
Please remember to be responsible on New Year’s Eve.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “If you want to go out and enjoy the New Year’s Eve with family and friends and celebrate the great new year coming in, but with that does come responsibilities, and that does come if you know you’re going to drink, it’s very clearly so easy to have an alternate means to drive other than yourself, designated drivers, some place close to home, Ubers, taxis. There is so many ways that you can avoid being on the road, endangering your life and or somebody else’s, your freedom, your liability, the risk, the exposure. There’s just so so much we can do to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. We continue to advocate responsible drinking and having designated drivers, whatever it may be to make sure that you’re here in 2026 to enjoy the next year.”