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 in the county.
With the stories of Cuban drones targeting Key West, it’s important to find the truth.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I did want to put something out to try to just calm the waters a little bit. The reality is, so far, all this is unconfirmed, potentially rumors, there has been nothing substantiated. While it’s been in the mainstream media, at this point in time, I’ve yet to see where it’s emulated from, and I told our listeners, as well as in the past, I’ve got clearance with the government, and that’s for a reasons like this that they’re supposed to want to contact the local authorities with clearance levels to brief them in, because they want us to be the part of these type of things, and that generally something like this was really occurring, reasonably we think we would get a call from the FBI to talk to us about it, so far I’ve had no contact with them. The reality is look, even if there was some type of conversation, it’s only going to be considered to be posturing. This is an embargo from the US, doing blockades right now, causing havoc in Cuba. They’re upset, sure, but would they actually, if they even do have 300 drones, military drones, would they actually attack Guantanamo Bay or Key West, or a military vessel? That’d be just crazy, because that would just open the door, floodgates for the US to just devastate that government, take out the regime, so I don’t think there’s any credibility to it, and if they had drones, the chances of them actually launching a drone attack against any US asset, I believe is zero chance. We just don’t want to be paranoid, we want to always be conscious of our surroundings, but you still want to live a life and normalcy, and the Keys are in no threat to any target from a foreign country, and I think go back to your day-to-day basis. If something changes, our citizens will be informed, there’ll be no surprises. If something hits the ground, I believe the US would have intelligence way ahead of time, so this is an interesting story, but is there a validity to it? I sincerely doubt it.”
The Keys 100 took place this past weekend and was a successful event.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Keys 100 we think is a very good event, very well run. The impacts have been relatively minor over the years. There’s been some run events that I would not sign off on, which had too much of a negative impact for the community traffic safety. I look at these carefully and try to determine, can they be done safely? What impact will it have on the citizens? What is it bringing? What is it doing for the TDC and tourism? We’ve got to balance a lot of factors in. Number one is public safety. Can this be done safely? But this one here, it’s very well run, very well organized, very little impact on the traffic flow, been no issues in the past. So I felt comfortable again that this is a very well organized, managed event, which brings a lot of people down, does a lot of good stuff, and we want to support good stuff, so we did support this, and again, being part of something good is what we’re all about.”
A man along US 1 on the morning of May 17 was charged with disorderly intoxication, resisting arrest, and he was combative.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We get a call to this individual, extremely intoxicated, combative, violent, on the side of the road, we dispatch zone cars. We see him as soon as we pull up. He continues the manner of which he was reported to be in, angry, violent, starts immediately yelling, screaming at deputies, profanity, immediately has his fist balled up in a fighting stance, his fist balled up, ready to fight. Starts aggressively coming at the officers. They’re giving verbal commands. He’s not complying to verbal commands. They go to deploy a taser, they try to deploy a taser. It’s ineffective. He’s coming at him, it turns to hands on, they had the hands engage him and escort him down to the ground, where he continued to struggle. We ultimately were able to secure him, handcuff him. We did arrest him for these charges so, here’s just a case of extreme intoxication, and we deal with this on a regular basis, unfortunately. It is frustrating, but we have to protect him from us and protect others from his actions.”
One person was victimized on a flight to Key West by an individual who was charged with battery after reportedly grabbing the victim’s breast while en route to Key West International Airport. The victim attempted to leave, and this person then grabbed her thigh.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “What a sad thing to do. You’re on a plane, you’ve got really no place to go, you’re kind of in this tough situation here. But a 61 year old male, did sexually batter this female grabbing her by the breast and leg and trying to keep her from her mobility. He was very aggressive, really traumatizing for this young lady. So, we did get a call about this incident inbound. We had security teams ready when they meet the aircraft once arrival. We did contact this male, we did detain him, we did get witness statements from witnesses, as well as clearly the victim in this case, who reported the battery that took place with this individual groping her in flight. So, really sad to hear these type of sad behaviors from stupid people. But at the end of the day, we did arrest him on multiple charges, and we are going to hold him accountable. Instead of coming back on vacation, he went right to MCJ and spend time at the Double R Bed and Breakfast, so instead of being at the La Concha or the Casa Marina or the Marriott, he’s at the Double R Bed and Breakfast.”
A man from Marathon apparently called the FBI, informing them that he was going to shoot a deputy, and when a deputy showed up, he grabbed a patrol sergeant by the throat.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’re not going to let people make threats to our citizens, but I’m sure as heck not going to let people make threats to bodily harm to my men and women. This is an individual who’s had some issues. This is just an individual who’s had issues with this one particular officer, and we’ve had some prior issues with this individual threatening this officer, but it clearly escalated at this point in time. He contacted the FBI, and during the FBI conversation, he made threats to bodily harm, to kill this officer, and he made electronic threats to do bodily harm or kill. So we did get the report from the FBI concerned about the safety of the officer. We did go out, try to contact this person after the case took place. As we showed up, the person became extremely angry and violent again with threats and attacks, and did put hands on one of my officers, and went to jail for battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest, for electronic threats to do bodily harm and kill, so whatever his beef is, he’s only making the situation worse by what he’s doing, but at the end of the day I will not tolerate threats of violence against person or persons, whoever they may be, including my men and women, so we’ve seen this in the past, where the students at schools have made threats of violence against other kids, or whether adults make threats against other people electronically, or in this case here, I’m just not going to tolerate this garbage, and he’s where he needs to be, he’s at my jail, and we’re going to continue to take forward action on him and make sure that he’s no threat to persons or persons.”
An 18 year old was charged with grand theft auto recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We initially stopped this car for reckless driving. We didn’t know it was stolen. Stopped by my officers for reckless driving. We’re out with an individual, it wasn’t his car. While out dealing with him, at some point in time later, some juveniles showed up, one being the 16 year old who was in possession, ownership of the car, or the parents, and while out with him for traffic citations, they reported that the car was just stolen. So we talk all the time how a simple traffic stop can go from one thing to something else quickly. You never know why the person’s driving erratic. What’s going on? We think it’s a speeding case, but unbeknownst to us at the time, the car was just stolen. Goes to show you how we are not always aware what just took place, and sometimes what makes them more dangerous and less safe for us. But we were able to cite him for the driving and recover a stolen car that we didn’t know was stolen, get it back to the owner. His actions of speeding resulted in the traffic stop, and that resulted in the people needing to come to report the car stolen. So, at the end of the day, he’s going to jail for grand theft auto, receiving citation for his traffic violations as well. So, again, stupid is job security for the Sheriff’s Office.”
A woman was charged with child neglect recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We were called about this woman who appeared to be intoxicated, called about a child neglect in progress. We did get there, contact her. We smelled a strong odor of marijuana coming out of this car. She clearly appeared to be intoxicated and high on potentially marijuana as well. There was a minor child in this car. At some point she entered the car and was getting ready to leave. The officers encountered her and told her if she tried, they would arrest her for DUI. She became very combative and argumentative and giving the officers a hard time. Yes, as we tried to check into the well-being of the child, she made comments about not caring about this child and didn’t care, and go ahead and take the child, so we went on and on and on, dealing with her. We did get DCS, Department of Children and Family Services involved in this as well, and we continued on, and ultimately we did arrest her on multiple charges, had the child turned over to Department of Children and Family Services, but a sad case. She was getting ready to get in this car and drive while high on drugs and alcohol, and had zero concern about the well-being of this minor child in this car. We hate to see this. This is so sad, and we hope that the courts will get involved and do something to try to hold somebody accountable.”
An individual was found in possession of undersized fish recently.
Sheriff Ramsasy said, “We see this every day, every day we’re out there trying to protect our resources, help aid, assist our FWC partner, and also doing a great job up there, and we just have to keep setting the message about protection of resources and holding people accountable. This Wednesday is our graduation for the Citizen Police Academy. We are graduating our Citizens Police Academy this Wednesday, 6 o’clock at Marathon High School. We’re going to use their stage or auditorium for the graduation for all three classes, north, central, south. So I want to say congratulations to our attendees who are graduating, and encourage other people, including yourself, next year to consider the Sheriff’s Office Citizen Police to continue. Really good time to interact with our citizens, so that’s coming up there.”