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.
Even with the holidays, the sheriff’s office is on duty 24/7.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “It’s a busy time of year for us, for sure, but really important for our team to be out there, make sure we’re protecting and serving. We’ll have our team members out 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365, so they all can’t take off, unfortunately. We’ll be out there, and it’ll be a good time of year, but also busy time, and right after holidays, we’re going to see a large increase in the traffic, and that’s when we start into the four month real season for the county.”
There was a recent violent domestic abuse case where a MSCO officer was injured and a carjacking ensued.
Sheriff Ramsay explained, “It’s still coming together, and details are still a little sketchy. It happened last night. A young child called us saying that the father was beating the mother. So we responded to this address (in Key Largo). Deputies, a sergeant, got on scene first, and heard a lot of yelling and screaming and entered the house, and it was initially so violent, he had a weapon drawn and giving orders to the male to comply. A Latin male probably about 51, 52-ish, who initially was semi compliant, had hands up in the air, said she was beating on him. The officer, at some point in time, went to holster his weapon. Right after he did, the individual then jumped on the officer, tried to take his gun, had his hand on his gun, trying to get the gun out of the officer’s holster, started punching the officer several times in the front and back head area. This was really violent at this point in time, officers calling for emergency backup. He’s struggling with this guy outside in the yard, tried to tase him. The taser did not have the effect we needed, as this thing is going on, the patrol cars are in front with the lights on, because we just rushed up to run inside. This fight rolls into the front of the yard. At some point in time, the bad guy gets up, runs, jumps in the patrol car and then starts driving away. The officer can’t do anything. He doesn’t have a car. The car goes down the street, and then the driver used the patrol car with the lights on to conduct a traffic stop, to stop a car in front of him, a woman in a red car. He gets out of the patrol car, goes to the red car, grabs the woman out of the car, and car Jacks her car and then takes off in this red car on US 1. We radio ahead about the car fleeing, and while it’s fleeing, we’re not behind it, because at this point in time, he just hijacked the car. It strikes another car from behind, and the car is doing over 100 miles an hour. Soon thereafter, loses control and flips the car. We get on scene. He’s trying to get out of the car and trying to get away, still fighting. We eventually get this guy handcuffed, secured, we get him medical attention. Didn’t have any medical issues, but we had to get him medically cleared, because he was just involved in a violent crash. We check on the well being of the car he struck. We call friends at FHP to work the crash, since it happened on US 1 and we’re quasi-involved. At the end of the day, this person’s a really bad person from Homestead, a convicted felon. He was charged with multiple crimes between the aggravated battery, domestic violence, the battery on the all law enforcement officer, resisting arrest with violence, the carjacking of the car from the woman, the grand theft auto from our patrol car. He’s got no license. He’s charged with driving on a suspended license, fleeing and eluding. So he’s got a litany of charges. So we took him right down to Key West. We transferred him to our main jail. His first appearance is today. I think he will be sitting in jail for a long time. He’s a convicted felon, so at some point in time when he’s grabbing and putting hands on our weapon, he possesses it. We charge him with possession of a weapon by a convicted felon. We charge with him burglary of conveyance. So this guy’s got so many charges. He’s got so much trouble coming his way from what he shouldn’t have been doing in the first place, battering his wife, but it just escalated and went downhill. You wonder, what are people thinking? You’re not going to get away. We know who you are. It’s not like no one knows you. You’re not going to fight us and just flee and hopefully we don’t identify you. It’s irrational thinking. But this is clearly a bad person, anger management, very violent, but it goes to show you how difficult and challenging a job the men and women the sheriff’s office have each and every day. How these calls can turn from a violent call someone else is at until we get there, that we’re the subject matter, which is not uncommon on domestic calls, that suspect or even the person that’s being battered to change and all sudden, jump on the officers. These are one of the most violent calls. The two more dangerous calls for a police officer are traffic stops and domestic violence calls, and it goes to show just why what we had to deal with last night.”
How are the officer and the victim of abuse?
Sheriff Ramsay said, “The victim of the abuse case, we got medical attention for them. We contacted our victim advocates to come out and check on them, their well being. There were two young children in the house who saw this really violent act occurring to the mother, actually, I told you the one child called police, but then saw the father engaging in in this fight with police. What a terrible message and image for these kids to see, devastating sad. My bureau chief of law enforcement check this morning with the officer and his well being. He was a little shook up. He got punched multiple times, but he’s going to be okay. Got some cuts and scrapes and bruises, but again, it’s a tough job to be a police officer anywhere, even in our safe community. Goes to show you that bad things happen anywhere.”
A 40 year old Tavernier Florida, man was arrested for his role in an overdose death that occurred earlier this year.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’ve seen this over the last year and a half where we’ve taken, this is probably the sixth person that we’ve charged with homicide for selling drugs to someone who’s taken them and died of overdoses. I’ve taken a stance early on. We were not going to tolerate this. We’re going to make these cases. They’re difficult to make. They’re difficult to prosecute, but we’re going to send a strong message, and we’re going to hold people accountable and their trials will take probably two years to come up at the minimum. They’re going to sit in my jail for two years while they wait for trial. During that time, they’re going to be unable to sell drugs to people and hurt our citizens. But this was a special operations case involving an overdose of a 41 year old male from the Upper Keys. We tracked down the drugs that were sold to a 40 year old male from Tavernier, a drug dealer who sold the drugs to the 41 year old male who ingested them, and then, as a result fentanyl overdosed and died. So we did get probable cause. We got the state attorneys on board. The judge found probable cause as well. We did arrest him for homicide and we’re going to keep doing this. We’re going to keep holding these drug dealers accountable, especially when someone dies. These are unusual cases that most agencies are not willing to do. They’re very time intensive, they’re very difficult, they’re challenging, and I think we are at the forefront of what police should be doing.”
Cocaine possession was charged in Marathon recently, where a man was charged with tampering with evidence in the Kmart parking lot.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This individual’s been dealing drugs as long as I can remember. I’ve been a police officer 38 years, and this family has been kind of a nuisance in our society for drugs for the whole time I’ve been a police officer. We had information about a person on the board a bus coming in on a Miami Dade County bus is maybe armed with a firearm, and we saw the bus and people get off. We’re looking for a description of the person, and he did not meet the description, but we were watching the people coming off. We saw him acting unusual and when he saw the police looking towards the bus, he started really acting odd. Pulled stuff in out his pocket, some plastic baggies, and started eating the contents, putting the plastic bag in his mouth. So as we obviously now went over to see what was going on, he has a white substance around his face. He’s still got the plastic bag in his mouth. We wound up getting the bag, even after eating all the stuff we get 2.3 grams of cocaine are still left. We arrest him for possession of the cocaine, but then we have to bring him to hospital because he’s ingested all this stuff. We eventually get him cleared from the hospital, bring him back down to the Key West jail. He’s been released from prison here recently for other drug related charges. So this is a career criminal, will not learn, his whole life has been evolved around drugs, usage and dealing, hurting other people. So at the end of the day, we’re there for one related matter, and while we’re there, something else occurs. Is not uncommon for law enforcement to be dealing with these things.”
There was a fight on 20th Street in Marathon on Friday night.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a difficult, challenging year for law enforcement. The homeless population hanging out there who are difficult and this population has substance abuse, alcohol, drugs and mental illness involved in this. So it makes it more difficult, challenging, more anger management issues. One of the residents there tried to drive his van past all the tents towards the front of the bridge area. Came too close, allegedly, a few people got mad. Confronted him in the vehicle, punched him through the window, and it just turned into a melee of a multiple of people punching, fighting. We get called out there. We eventually determine what’s going on, who is involved. We eventually have to arrest three people for this attack out there. So again, this is a frustrating area. It’s hard to manage when there’s no easy answer. We just can’t arrest people for being homeless, and we just don’t want to push them out, either because they’re going to go somewhere else. Where are they going to go? It’s not against the law to be homeless, as we say, but when you have a large group of homeless people with all type of issues in life that are cohabitating in a close proximity, it’s not uncommon to have these type of bad behaviors occurring. So it’s difficult and challenging for my men and women who have to go to this homeless encampment and deal with a lot of violent people at times. But again, we say the job as a police officer is exciting, but yet dangerous.”
A woman from Ocala, Florida, was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest on Stock Island recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Stock Island is a challenging area. We do have a lot of difficult, challenging people on Stock Island. We have to put a special officer out there that can deal with those type of confrontations, because that area does cause us a lot of calls for service and a lot of issues. You have a lot of homeless people, lot of substance abuse people, a lot of people that are living at large. So that is a challenging are, and we do have a lot of calls out there on a regular basis.”
During the holidays, it’s important to remember not to drink and drive. There are a lot of means of transportation available.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is the time of year to spend time with family and friends. Enjoy the festive holidays. We want you to go to parties, events, but if you’re going to drink, we want you to be responsible, get designated drivers, taxis, Ubers, a friend, have a plan. At the end of the day getting behind the wheel after drinking, nothing good comes out of that. You’re going to potentially destroy your life and/or somebody else’s. If you kill someone, you’re going to jail for a DUI, manslaughter, you just don’t want to spend your life either in jail, prison, being civilly sued, hurting somebody, hurting yourself, and having to live with that. There are so many other ways and options to still go out and do what you want to do, but be safe and secure for yourself. We advocate that. Always have a plan ahead of time. Don’t wait for your intoxication to be in place and then trying to make a decision, because you can’t make rational decisions when you’re intoxicated. Make the rational decision before you drink. I want to say Merry Christmas to you and your listeners. I want to thank you for your friendship and partnership with us every week. Everybody be safe and secure, and we’ll talk to you soon.”
Michael Stapleford of KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM said, “Merry Christmas to you and your family. Please be safe. Thank you for all you do. We sincerely appreciate and are grateful for your service. Thank you. We certainly appreciate your time and friendship and service each and every day.”