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.
The holiday wasn’t terribly busy, but there were some incidents on the highways.
A 42 year old man from the Florida mainland was driving recklessly on US 1, passing illegally in the center lane and almost struck some pedestrians. He was taken to jail.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is always a shame to see people driving so stupid and reckless regard for people’s life and safety. We got multiple reckless driving calls. People calling in about a motorcycle high speed passing in a center turn lane through Islamorada. That center turn lane is used for a de-acceleration lane for cars to pull over to make a turn. Or a lot of times pedestrians will go halfway and use it for safe haven. So while he was driving recklessly, he was almost had several head on accidents. We had a situation where pedestrians had to jump out of the way, jump into the lane of travel of oncoming traffic to avoid this high speed motorcycle. We had the motorcycle happen to leave that lane going on coming traffic to avoid crashing and hitting other vehicles and persons. So he was just total disregard from beginning to the end. We did identify him. We did witness him. We eventually did stop him. We did cite him for reckless driving, arrested him, took him to jail, towed his motorcycle I don’t believe he had a motorcycle endorsement. So again, you’re down here, just drawing attention to yourself. I don’t know how people drive like this don’t think sooner or later, either a they’re going to kill themselves or somebody, or sooner or later, police are not going to be involved, and they’re not going to get in trouble. It’s just stupid behavior. At 42 years old, you should know better. You’re not just a kid, you’re a middle aged adult. But we’re glad to get him off the road before someone got seriously hurt, including himself, tow his motorcycle and hold him accountable.”
Another motorcycle stop resulted in discovering the motor cycle was actually stolen.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This was a routine traffic stop for a traffic violation, a minor violation. We have with this young man, and it’s a high speed Ducati while he had no motorcycle endorsement, so he wasn’t legally allowed to operate the motorcycle anyway. Violation driver license restrictions is a misdemeanor offense. But while going out, the vehicle did come back stolen. While talking about the motorcycle, we had multiple stories about whose bike it was, but couldn’t ever identify a true owner or contact number. We were in contact with the local police department on the west coast of Florida about the stolen motorcycle, who they confirmed again that it was a stolen bike. So we did arrest him for a grand theft and no motorcycle endorsement. We recovered the motorcycle, impounded it for the West Coast police department so the owner can recover that motorcycle. So good job by the sheriff’s office. As we always talk about, routine traffic stops, even for minor tag violations, can result in this case stolen motorcycle, or people wanted for violent charges or narcotics. So much we talk about with traffic is being the number one complaint the sheriff’s office gets, the number one loss of life and injuries from traffic crashes. That’s why we focus so much on traffic enforcement. But with that, fruits of your labor so many good other criminal offenses are warded off or held accountable.”
A man from Miami Shores was arrested for unnatural and lascivious acts recently. He was at a bar resort in Layton about 8:30 at night, and he started groping a woman.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Alcohol and making poor decisions, we talk so much in your show about decisions which are made about people under the influence, and make these poor decisions which adversely impact others, either by committing crimes on them, scaring them, and in this case, getting yourself in trouble, going to jail. So it’s a shame that this woman had to be put through this. That’s one of the most aggressive things that a woman can go through with someone groping her and have to live with them for a long period of time, the traumatic events like that. So I’m just glad we were able to arrest him, put him in jail, hold him accountable, and hopefully some closure for that woman who had to deal with that ordeal.”
Another woman who was also victimized on Little Torch Key saw a man who broke into her residence. He was her ex boyfriend.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We did get a call almost one o’clock in the morning from the owner of the residence, who was not there, but did have a surveillance system at the house and saw her ex boyfriend, 70 year old male, who was inside the home, had broken into the home. She contacted authorities, notified us, notified us who it was. We responded to find him still within the residence. We did find him to have drug paraphernalia and signs of drugs. He did acknowledge that the drug paraphernalia and that he was using drugs inside of her house. She did wish to press charges, so we did arrest him for burglary and criminal mischief and drug paraphernalia related charges. So this is a guy who has got a lot of problems. She broke up with him, dumped him because of issues with his drug use and other related stuff. Since then, he’s kind of been just floating around and couch surfing and living abroad and made the decision to break into her house, and wasn’t the best decision, and now he’s living in my house.”
A Stock Island man beat a woman and burned her hand last week.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a violent Latin male from Stock Island. He was involved in this relationship with this woman. This is a domestic matter. They got into a domestic altercation. Again, the male is a very violent individual, and had batted her multiple times. She had her cell phone, attempted to call for help, he snatched the phone from her, depriving her the right user benefit of that phone. Thus is a robbery. Also she was unable to call 911 services. But we were alerted by neighbors about this ruckus going on. We did arrive and find this woman who was terrified, who had clear signs of domestic violence, had bruising throughout her body from the signs of being battered multiple times. She required medical attention. During the course of the fight, he turned the grill on, took her hand and placed her hand, forced her, held it down on the grill, burning her hand, and this was just a sad display, something like this and that woman living in a domestic violence situation on a daily basis with someone like this, sometimes it’s hard to break that cycle of violence. Sometimes it’s hard for the victims in these cases to leave. They come back a lot of times, either because they have no place to go, or that they start blaming themselves for making the person mad or aggravated, or they truly hope the person will repent and change their ways. If the person says they’re going to. These are just sad situations that they’re put in these constant positions that eventually, this could take their lives. So we’re glad to get there, get her medical attention, stop the cycle of violence for that night, get him in jail, hold him accountable with the courts, and hopefully she can make better decisions for relationships. We do have victim advocates who come out and help aid and assist and give people other choices and help them as a mentor to walk through the process of getting away from these people and starting a new life. So we always hope for the best that someone will break away from someone like this who’s never going to change. This is always going to be a violent perpetrator who’s going to hurt whoever he’s with.”
A fight at Winn Dixie in Marathon involved alcohol recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Unfortunately, alcohol again, we get a call in the daytime about a fight in progress in the parking lot of the Winn Dixie in Marathon. Our units arrive to find two males in a physical altercation, fighting. There are multiple witnesses who identified the person who was the aggressor, who started the fight, was the attacker, after separating the parties, determining medical needs, identifying witnesses, determined who the aggressor was and that person was arrested for this battery, this fight that occurred in the parking lot of the Winn Dixie, so lately, unfortunately, that Winn Dixie in Marathon has causing us a lot of problems. We have a lot of homeless people starting to hang out there. A lot of people waiting for the bus. That’s a big hangout to catch the bus. So we have some people that are just alcohol influenced, homeless or other related matters that that’s just becoming a problem for us here lately.”
A couple recently had sex in a car wash in Marathon.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This couple, about a month, month and a half ago, they were at the Tom Thumb in the car wash having sex, and that Tom Thumb is in the Winn Dixie parking lot plaza. So same complex. These persons are out there, now there’s three people today at this time, a female and two males, right in the middle of the parking lot, daytime, plain view, we get a call about sexual act occurring. We come up to find a female who’s got her skirt pulled up to have a male who’s performing oral sex on her, and another male who’s laying flat next to them with his pants pulled down and is touching himself in an improper manner. So we’ve got all three people who are basically committing sexual acts in public, in plain view. All three are placed under arrest on these variety of charges. Again, it’s a shame if they want to be together, be together. Just go somewhere where people don’t have to witness this display in public, go in the woods, go behind the building, get a hotel room, something, but right in the middle of a public parking lot? It’s just disgusting. These people just don’t learn. This is the second time we have arrested them for the same related matters in the same general location. Again, unfortunately, the Winn Dixie in Marathon’s becoming a little bit of an issue for us. We’re going to have to have an action plan, some more enforcement, and we’re going to have to try to work with the owners to do better, to warn some of these people who are hanging around this property.”
A recent arrest of a Key Largo individual happened because of illegally dumping more than 6,000 pounds of trash, furniture, and other household items on Monroe County owned property.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Some people that are living in the woods and turning these areas into just disasters, bringing in furniture and garbage and trash, feces, and just living there, but dumping and doing nothing to maintain the area that they’re illegally camping on in the first place. We’ve made multiple arrests in the past, and every time we identify these people, we work closely with the county. A lot of these properties have been county owned properties. We’ve talked to individuals, we’ve given them a chance to clean up their mess and avoid prosecution and charges. And every time they tell us they’re going to and we want to give them multiple orders, and they continue to say, yeah, yeah, yeah. But in the end, they don’t do anything to clean up the mess they’ve made. Same situation here, we gave this person three chances to clean this property up. Said he would, and he had furniture and just trash and garbage and just destroying this environment that at the end of the day is we got a warrant for his arrest. We did arrest him for felony dumping. We worked closely with the county, and we had to clean all this mess up with the county. We’re talking 1000s of pounds of trash, which someone has to come out, pick up, clean, move, get the trucks brought in to be dumped and destroyed and disposed of. It cost, time, money, effort, again, we have to do whatever we can to protect our environment, keep our communities clean, safe and secure. If people just follow orders and directions, there’ll be no problems. If they don’t, for every action there is a reaction. And we are going to hold people accountable, and I’m not going to let people trash our Keys and get away with it.”