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.
Crime has gone down recently in Monroe County.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I always love to talk to our people in the community, Rotary, Chamber, leaderships, VPWs, get a captive audience. It’s so much of a pleasure to talk about the sheriff’s office, all the good stuff we’re doing. Meet and greet people, do some Q and A, build these relationships with our citizens. But yes, we were also talking last week at the Chamber about reduction in crime. Crime is down this year 13% in Monroe County, we’re at a record low level crime per capita. So we’re very proud of that. The men and women in the sheriff’s office working hard to keep this community safe and secure and clean. We’re definitely happy and proud of that.”
The sheriff’s office received another perfect audit, making this 22 years in a row for perfect consecutive audits.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is part of fiscal responsibility. I take this very serious. This is taxpayers’ money. We manage a lot of money, and it’s important that we track every single penny. We have a great finance team to do our audits, but we bring in outside, independent auditors to make sure that we’re getting a clean bill of health, we’re being looked at objectively and that there’s no shenanigans that we can have someone outside give us a thorough look at and make sure that we can, for sure, do things perfect, count for every money, work on best practices, and then come back and make sure we tell our citizens that again, every single penny of your tax dollars has been accounted for and is being properly spent for the best interest of public safety. So I’m always proud of that and then we return money every year that I don’t spend. I returned last year $4.2 million I did not spend that on my budget, returned it back to the taxpayers. So this, I think, is true fiscal responsibility at its best.”
A recent case happened where someone brandished a firearm towards another person in a car.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I don’t understand this, but every time these things happen, it’s hard to understand. This was an Upper Keys businessman driving down the road Saturday morning got involved in a road rage incident with another motorist, and then our Upper Keys resident, businessman, pulled out a firearm, brandished it, pointed it out the window at the other driver. That’s an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. That is a crime. You cannot do that and you don’t know if the car you’re pointing at may also be armed. If someone points a gun at you, the other person could have a weapon and could be in fear for their life, could potentially fire, shoot at you, and they could have a good, lawful stand your ground case for shooting you. Look, there’s a means to deal with reckless driving. Call 911, call the sheriff’s office. If you have a car which is engaging in unsafe acts around you, just hit the brakes, pull over, let them go by. Don’t get into who’s got the fastest car or young or screaming or flipping off or pointing guns. Nothing good can come out of that. But what can happen is it can escalate until either you’re playing bumper cars, or you stop and you get in a fight, or someone points a gun, or, God forbid, someone pulls the trigger on a gun. Nothing good comes out of these road rage situations where you’re thinking with emotion, not logic. If you were logically thinking, you would never have done that, but an emotional thinking is almost always going to be the opposite of what logical thinking would be.”
A theft case recently involved $15,000 worth of lottery tickets.
Sheriff Ramsay said it was “a really great job by investigators, an inside job, an employee and an ex employee working together. They’ve been stealing these lottery tickets for a long period of time, we believe. They know that the cameras are going but they’re not worried about the cameras, because a lot of places have surveillance cameras going around the clock, but don’t do random checks, don’t look at it unless there’s a problem. So they really weren’t worried about it, knowing that no one’s really looking at the tapes. We sent out the video. The video was pretty impressive, very clear. We can make people out, you could see them taking literally hundreds of lottery tickets from each different division. Just rip it off, give them to the guy over the counter, another reel, another reel, another reel, another reel and it was so casual, they weren’t concerned about anybody else. They’ve been doing this for a while. The two individuals were later on seen on another camera going to cash in those tickets at another location as a co conspirator. I’m sure the Circle K was happy to get some closure on that case, but yeah, they had stolen a lot of lottery tickets and had got a lot of money from the winnings over unknown period of time. But the video was amazing.”
A murder case happened in a resort hotel room in Key Largo.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “A very sad case, but not a random act of violence. Most of the time these things occur, they’re known parties. They’re either going to be domestic related, drug related, or homeless on homeless, none of which is good, but we just don’t have random acts of violence as such. But yes, this was a Key Largo male who had rented a room in Key Largo and was going to have a young lady who lived between Homestead and Key Largo, kind of transitioned back and forth. At the time, we think she was mostly living in South Dade was going to come down and visit him at the hotel room. She had contacted a friend about 8:57 in the morning to say she arrived and she was in the room with the male, just as a safety check gap. This is a Saturday morning, but they never heard from her. She was supposed to check back in when she left with her daughter and with a friend. She did not and they had not heard from her for a couple days. They tried to call their cell phone. Couldn’t get hold of her. She never called them. Daughter reported her as a missing persons on Monday, at the sheriff office. We responded out to the resort where the daughter said she had gone. We located her car. Her car was there, backed into a spot. We checked with the front desk. She had not checked in as a tenant or a guest. So we still believe we had a missing person at this time, and then sometime later, looking into the case, we started believing foul play was involved. Within a matter of a day, we’re able to determine we believe this was a potential homicide case. We located a body in one of the rooms. We had no suspect at the time, but we identified a suspect. We located a suspect. We interviewed the suspect and ultimately we arrested a suspect in less than 24 hours. So while a sad case, but it was a good job by the sheriff’s office to have someone in custody for that crime in under a day and try to get some type of closure for the family, hold this person accountable, and this person’s in my jail. He’s going to be there for a while, I’m sure, has a prior arrest for domestic battery, is on probation for Grand Theft Auto, I think prior drug charges, adult male, I think, about 33 who was kind of on and off living with his mom, no vehicle, really kind of a loser. The suspect in this case was a 42 year old female from South Dade. So again, tragic case, but investigation-wise, good job by my major crime detectives.”
The convicted killer Michael Tanzi, was executed last week for the kidnapping and murder that he committed a number of years ago.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Michael Tanzi abducted and kidnapped a reporter, a Miami Herald worker, a female who was on lunch break and date and then battered her, kidnapped her, tied her up, sexually assaulted her, drove her to the Keys, went down on Blimp Road, eventually strangled and killed her. Sheriff’s Office made a pretty quick arrest in that case, he’s found guilty 30 years ago, thereabouts, and has been on death row. Tried to appeal to the end, but yes, last week, shortly after 6pm he was executed by lethal injection. Third person this year I think that we executed in Florida. Sad case, but some final closure in that chapter for families and friends, that tragic, tragic situation. So that’s good.”
A female who had shot and killed her boyfriend more than a year ago on Big Coppitt went to trial and was found guilty recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said she “tried to have a claim of battered woman syndrome, which was found not to be really the case. She was found to be the aggressor in that relationship, and had shot and killed her boyfriend in the back, and she was found guilty by the jury. Sentencing just recently took place. She was sentenced to 40 years in state prison for the taking the life of her boyfriend. So again, sad, but some closure. Sad, but again, not a random act, a domestic related matter.”
Easter on the Farm was this past weekend.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “What a big event for the community. This farm is so special to this community. It’s just one of a kind. Easter on the farm, we have about 1000 people come out in a two hour window. Team members do a great job out there. We hide 10,000 eggs on the farm. For the kids, we break them up in two different groups, the really young kids, three and under type stuff, have one section to themselves, and then the older kids are in the bigger areas, but they have most of the eggs. But we make it a fun event to see, touch, hold animals, face painting, making crafts, live music, Easter egg hunts. It’s a really special day for these young kids to come out here and experience law enforcement, to help send this message that we are the good guys and good gals. It’s just a great day, so special. Most kids in the Keys have only seen a cat, a dog, a chicken or an iguana, this gives them a chance to see so many different species. The kids just love this farm.”
This is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “911 dispatchers are the backbones of this agency. They are so critical to get and receive information from citizens to help render aid. They do what’s called EMD, emergency medical dispatching, where they can walk people through CPR, choking, other related trauma. They’re the lifeline for the police officers in the field. They do so much, and they work a 12 hour day in a difficult, challenging job dealing with a crisis. One of the most difficult, challenging jobs and we thank them so much.”