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.
The 49th annual Marathon Seafood Festival was safe thanks to MCSO.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “It’s good to see you and everyone else at this great event. They’ve got this event so honed in. It’s just one of the best events anywhere. My team members do a good, hard job keeping pedestrians safe and secure, walking across the street, keep traffic flowing. I think we did a great job. We never had any backup to traffic. No one got hurt. Everything was safe inside and out. We always have a strong presence. We want visibility, presence, rapid response if needed. You saw a lot of inmates in orange jump suits picking up trash, cleaning up. We’re trying to be a good partner to the Chamber, to our organized fishermen, to this community, to this event, to make sure it’s safe, secure, clean. So it’s a big team effort. It was great event, as always, just good music, great food, good people. I try to go out there every year in uniform and have a good presence myself, be visible.”
A man charged with the 2023 shooting death of Garrett Hughes was granted a $3 million bond on Friday.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is such a tough, difficult situation for this community. The young man who lost his life is so tragic. But Mr. Brewer is being released today. We’ve got some terms and conditions, as does the courts implied on him, between passports and ankle monitoring and house arrest, a collection of weapons. We’ll have to be working closely with that to collect and secure those weapons and put them into our evidence property and make sure that they are not accessible. We hope that he follows his conditions and that this is a safe thing for our community. A lot of tensions are very high. I understand the courtroom was packed with a lot of people in community who are not thrilled about him being released on the bond. The bond was $3 million. I understand from my jail facilities, he has already posted the bond. So I think the bond is not a question. It’s just the last few minute things getting tied up between passports and pre trial services and him to be released on monitoring and us again to get those weapons from the house. So he does live in the county of Monroe, although the incident and the victim lived in the city of Key West, but he lives in South Monroe, close to the city. So long as he follows his terms of condition, stays in his house, we should not have any incidental contact with anybody to cause any other problems. This case will be going to trial, but it probably will be a longer period of time. When you’re in jail, you want to get the trial as soon as you can. When you’re not in jail, you tend to want to drag these things out and postpone the case as long as you can. I suspect this will probably make this case further down the road, a year, year and a half, two, maybe.”
A Miami Springs FL man was arrested for burglary and theft recently in Marathon.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I saw this when I was driving home, because I live in that area, and this was a little after seven, down on Sombrero Beach area. We got a report about a person on a property, a burglary, theft, some lower downstairs areas of the home. We responded and while we’re there, we’re doing canvas, looking for the suspect in this case, who was in dark, black clothing, was masked, trying to hide his identity. We also then got a call about a theft occurring at Winn Dixie, a person matching description inside of there. We’re able to get a hold of this individual. This was a 40 year old Latin male from Miami. He’s a career criminal, a violent criminal, has had multiple arrests for violent charges, including guns, other weapons. This a really, really bad person. He had an outstanding warrant from Miami Dade County as it was. We found him to be in possession of three concealed knives on his person. So obviously continues to show the safety concerns we have in law enforcement, and you never know when a person may have a knife, let alone three in this case. We were able to link him to the burglary, as well as clearly, the theft that occurred in Winn Dixie, and we charged him with a burglary, theft, other related stuff, possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, served a warrant outstanding from Miami Dade County. So much of our crime related problems come from Miami Dade. Most people in Miami Dade are really good, outstanding people, but we say it all along, there’s a lot of trash in Miami, and sometimes that trash comes out, and then we have to play trash man and take out the trash.”
A man from Montgomery, New York was charged with DUI, resisting arrest, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This came out from Good Samaritan calls from several motorists about a person they thought was reckless, maybe impaired, heading south inbound to the county, about the 109 and running over the construction cones and not able to maintain a single lane. We located the vehicle about the 109, 108 area. We found the individual naked wearing a plastic hard hat, construction hat. While out with him, the music in the car was going, he started dancing. So he’s out there dancing naked on the side of road with a hard hat on. At some point in time we’re getting ready to arrest him for a DUI, when he grabs a marijuana smoking pipes trying to smoke marijuana in front of us. So we charged him with additional charges of the marijuana and paraphernalia. But this goes to show you how disoriented he was due to alcohol and drugs, presumably, alcohol and marijuana, that he’s naked, that he’s dancing on the side of the road naked to music, that he’s trying to smoke marijuana in front of police officers. So it’s goes to show you, if you can’t even think rational to that point, what is your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle? Based on the accounts from our citizens, not very good. So we did him arrest on a slew of charges for the DUI, the marijuana, the paraphernalia, got him off the road before he killed himself or somebody else. These are just menaces to society.”
An Upper Keys shooting recently saw a minor who was grazed by a bullet.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is an ongoing investigation by our Major Crimes Unit. This happened at Key Largo Park involving juveniles. We think it was some altercation over a female. No surprise, that’s what a lot of these things will end up being. The young kids that are fighting over a girl. Some altercation took place with verbal threats to beat each other up. One individual pulled out a weapon, a firearm, and discharged it twice, grazing one of the juveniles in the hand, finger area, and then the second bullet struck a cell phone in his cargo pants, and the cell phone exploded from the bullets, putting small fragments in the inside of both legs. Non-life threatening, but we did have to bring them up to Kendall Regional to receive services. The victim, in his case, has not been very cooperative with us. So this is an ongoing investigation. The father is very upset with the victim and wants the juvenile to comply and help us, but so far, well, most of the kids that were there, witnesses and victims have not been very cooperative, but we are going to investigate this. We’re going to resolve this. We are going to hold somebody accountable for this incident and report back to your listeners of the outcome, but I feel pretty confident that we are closing in on a suspect.”
New rules from the federal administration concerning immigration has had a real effect.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I think there’s so much pressure on air, sea, land, we’ve still got the Air National Guard here. United States Coast Guard has really ramped up their patrols, creating almost what’s called a picket fence, where it’s almost impossible for the migrants coming from Haiti or Cuba or other areas to get past that picket fence. I think there’s a lot of fear from migrants who felt comfortable to come here, that you could stay here with the last administration now know that you’re likely not going to be able to stay. You’re likely to get caught, you’re likely to get sent back. So I think you’ve probably seen a reduction in people trying to get here, and you’ve seen an inability of many to get here because of the strong presence of state, local, federal, mostly federal, that are out there. But the influx in not only money, but also in a direction what the national interests are, have changed. For every action there’s a reaction. For the actions of the current regime of the United States government, the reaction from those outside are, I think, more geared towards not a good time. No sense wasting your time. It’s futile. It’s not worth it. Before it was because it’s open borders. We’ve gone from an open border society to back to a closed border society, which is what the current laws, rules and regulations are, until the citizens want something different and is voting legislation, this is the law of the land.”
A platinum award from the Florida Sheriff’s Department was presented recently to Nigora Azizova with Café Maton in Key West.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a mother, son team that came to this country legally through legal immigration, and they are the success story of a better life. I had a chance to speak to them in my office for a while as they came to this country about seven years ago and wanted to work, wanted to be a part of society, open up their restaurant. Are doing a great job with their restaurant down here. A really, really fantastic couple, mother, son. Son’s an adult who actually works for pre trial services. So both have good, solid, stable jobs in this community. Want to better our community, and besides that, want to be part of Florida Sheriffs Association and have donated money to be a strong partner with FSA to better keep our community safe and secure. This is it. I’m all about immigration and migration. I’m just about legal immigration, legal migration. This country is made up of people from foreign countries. We love it, and we just thought this is a success of partnerships. They get this community, they get this FSA, sheriff’s office, community policing profile, and want to be part of it. I really enjoyed time with them, but we want to thank them again for their partnership, for sure.”