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.
Employees at the MCSO are held to the same standards as everyone else.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I’ve got almost 600 employees, so at times, they’re going to make poor decisions, either on or off duty, and we always want to let our listeners hear from us first. We always talk about how much good stuff the agency and personnel does. We’re going to highlight those. But sometimes, when something bad happens, I want the people to hear it from me first. We did put a press release out and notify people that we had to deal with one of our officers got arrested by Key West Police last week. He and his girlfriend were out drinking downtown, another poor decision based off of alcohol influence decisions, got into a domestic dispute, it escalated that there was a male and female couple who tried to intervene to try to deescalate and help the female in this case, and the officer off duty, intoxicated, moved his anger from his girlfriend to the woman who tried to help her, putting hands on her, committing a battery on her. The husband then intervened to try to protect his wife who just had hands put on her from this off duty officer, which turned into a scuffle. During this scuffle, at some point in time, this off duty intoxicated officer pulled out a pocket knife, sort of waving and threatening the male with his pocket knife. So he’s just making the situation worse, going from a domestic battery to a battery on another person to now an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Ultimately, Key West Police were called. Ultimately they took statements, determined that these offenses did occur, they had probable cause to believe that this took place. They arrested him. We got contacted and notified right away, he was still in my jail within hours when I sent over my internal affairs division, my team, to give him formal notice that he was under investigation by internal affairs division. Soon thereafter, we notified him our intent to terminate his employment. Part of due process and the deputy sheriff’s Bill of Rights, he’s entitled to a due process service. He’s entitled to a predetermination hearing, which has been set with my Under Sheriff, and he’ll have a chance to tell us why he shouldn’t be fired, and then we’ll make the decision after hearing all the information whether he will or won’t be fired. But we’re just not going to tolerate this behavior from anybody, whether it be a general citizen downtown, intoxicated or surely not one of my personnel who are off duty intoxicated downtown, we have to be held at a higher standard, represent the agency and community at all times, on and off duty in a professional manner which reflects positively on the agency, not poorly. We can’t wear the badge, enforce these laws, and when we take the badge off, violate the laws, and I won’t tolerate that from my personnel, as we’ve seen in the past, from how I deal with my employees when they do step into it.”
A body was found over the weekend in the mangroves near Blackwater Sound in the Upper Keys.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Definitely sad. A good Samaritan in a boat, early morning, heading out, saw a male up around the mangrove area floating, stopped to check and determine for sure, yes, this was a deceased individual, not someone in distress. We believe it to be a 30 something year old black male had a pair of shorts on, no ID. His identity is yet to be determined. We’re working closely with our major crime unit to try to determine his identity. We want to thank our friends at FWC, United States Coast Guard, for helping out. We contacted the medical examiner who has to determine cause. There was no signs of foul play at the time, so at this point in time, we’re not seeing any signs of a homicide, some type of drowning, clearly, but we’ll have to have the medical exam to make sure that they determine that the drowning was salt water in the lungs indicative drowning, or that there was some other cause. We’ll determine that. Right now, major crime, homicide detectives have the case. We still want to identify this person and notify the family if anybody’s missing what we believe to be a 30 something African American male. This is in Key Largo, Blackwater Sound area, so a sad case for sure. We thank our good Samaritans for stopping and checking and then making contact with us ultimately and just part of our job, dealing with these type of situations.”
A package containing approximately five pounds of suspected marijuana was found just off a Little Torch in the Lower Keys washed ashore.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Historically we think of marijuana, we think bales on top of a shrimp boat, big packages of bales together. Now, if we do see marijuana, it’s generally packaged in smaller levels. It’s packaged to try to sustain the elements of salt water. So we did have a motorist on the water who found what appears to be about a five pound package of marijuana floating, off Little Torch in the Lower Keys, contacted the sheriff’s office, turned it over to us, we then work with our other partners to use it for more intel gathering, any marks, any signs, how long has it been in the water, any markings that would indicate what country or maybe cartel it came from. It’s more of an intel-driven at that point in time, the chance of finding who owned it is about zero. Once it’s done being used for intelligence, then it’ll be destroyed, but it still continues to show that every now and then we do find cocaine or marijuana floating, as I always say, it keeps the history, the mystery of drug smuggling in the Keys alive, that it is still occurring at some level.”
A few weeks ago, two juveniles were arrested for rod and reel theft. It was about $2,000 worth of rods and reels taken from a boat dock at the Stock Island Marina.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “A lot of agencies wouldn’t investigate these type of cases. They’d just make a report and tell you call the insurance company. But we try to solve all our crimes. So we did have two high value rod and reel stolen from a commercial vessel down there off of the Key West Yacht Club area in Stock Island. We got the report. We had detectives come out. We canvassed the area. We found some surveillance footage, video of the individuals. We were able to then later have our officers able to identify one of these individuals. We went to the individual’s house, I think it was a grandmother’s house, was very cooperative. In the bedroom, we found one of the two missing, stolen, high, expensive rod and reels in the room, we also found a couple other rod and reels which were suspected to have been stolen from a vessel burglary about six months earlier, they were taken into evidence protective custody while we investigate that case. But we believe they also were stolen. This was a 15 year old male from the Stock Island area, and we then, after that, identified the 16 year old partner with him, who is from Florida, but not the Keys. Ultimately, we did get a hold of that individual. We did locate the second stolen rod and reel. Both stolen rod and reels were returned to the commercial fisherman who was very happy obviously, that we got his property back, that he got it back at all, but we just are vigilant. We did not name these two individuals who are arrested on felony charges. Sometimes I name juveniles. Most of the time I don’t, but I tell our listeners when I do it is because the needs of the citizens to know who these people are outweigh the privacy of a juvenile. Sometimes, if they are doing any type of sexual related crime, if they’re doing violent crimes, stabbing, shooting, possessing a gun, there’s certain things that I think parents who have other kids need to know so they can make the decisions whether their kids can hang out with this person or not, whether this child can or can’t come to their homes, can or can’t date their children. So I’m just trying to use a very challenging decision making formula at times to name or not name kids. I’m allowed, by Florida law, to name juveniles who were involved in felony crimes. I’m not allowed to identify juveniles who are arrested solely on a misdemeanor charge. But again, it’s discretion. I try to use good discretion on these matters involving juveniles for the best interest of everybody involved.”