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 holidays are always a busy time for MCSO.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “So many events, parades, parties, we’re at, we’re helping, we’re making sure they’re safe. So Friday night, we did have the Islamorada Christmas parade at Founders Park. There was a full house. It’s a big community event. They have a big pile of snow for the kids who are throwing snowballs. There’s food, there’s vendors. The whole park is set up for Christmas Wonderland. There’s a beautiful parade that goes at night. So we have a lot of responsibilities. First off, I had about four officers doing traffic control, crossing people safely on US 1 wanting to get to and from the park, get cars in and out. So it’s a big, intensive operation for staffing. But then we also have the responsibility for the safety inside, for the kids and children, so we have a strong presence. I had the honor to ride in one of the cars as one of the participants in the parade. So I was riding in a beautiful convertible Mercedes, waving to all the citizens. We just love this. It’s so good to see the positive support from the citizens, waving and thanking us. It’s good for us to make these everlasting contacts, talking and waving, encountering, being humanized by our citizens. So it was great event. It was a good night for me. I worked all Friday in Key West, and drove that night to be in Upper keys for that night and drove back south. So a long night for me, but a great event. Really went well. The weather was good, just so happy to be part of that. Then the next day is a busy day, I’d go back up to Plantation Key, I threw the ball up for beginning of basketball season for the kids. Then I drove back down to Key West, where I saw you later for the Key West Christmas parade, which we know the sheriff’s office always has a footprint in that parade. Our team members all want to be part of that. Everyone who comes out to the sheriff’s office or volunteers they want to be there, we’re not paying people to come to these events. They’re there because they want to be part of this community. They want to do good. They want to have fun. And it shows. You saw when we had between the green shirts and the red shirts, our team members, we had probably 30 members out there in various roles. We brought out our farm animals to walk in the parade, our floats, some of our patrol boats and different stuff. It’s a good time for all of us to go out and shake hands and high five the kids and say hello. The energy from that crowd is so overwhelming in a positive manner of all the whole route people yelling and screaming. We love the sheriff’s office, Mister Ramsey. Sheriff Ramsey, Rick, whoever they call me. All positive to see that they love, they want to take a picture, come out thanking you from the sidelines. We go home feeling so well loved and supported and part of this community, which is what I aspire to do with my team members as part of my community policing, and my team members get the same opinion and same support, and they love it. They love seeing people that just truly in this nation love law enforcement. Some other communities aren’t as lucky as we are. So what a great night, what a great event. Obviously saw you there. Thank you for what you did up there at the MC booth. Just another great day for the MCSO family.”
Michael Stapleford of KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM said, “You’ve done such a terrific job in fostering such trust and respect of your department by the population and by the people, but it comes with a lot of hard work. You’re constantly very visible. You’re very accessible. Not only you, but your entire department, are true ambassadors of the sheriff’s department, such that when they do see people in their time of need, or sometimes, as you said, in their worst points in their life, and your people show up, they already have that trust and respect, and it just makes everything go that much smoother.”
Sheriff Ramsay said, “It takes so much time and effort to get where we’re at, to build the relationship and the respect that we have, but you can lose it quickly. It’s something we’ve got to keep constantly doing every day, and we are focused on holding the ground we have and continue to build positive ground. So yeah, I’m proud of this community, proud of the sheriff’s office and what we have going on.”
Yesterday was Christmas on the Farm at the sheriff’s animal farm.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Another great community event that we aspire to do all the time. Spend time with the kids, these very young, encourageable kids, a lot of who are just trying to decide whether we’re the good guys or bad guys. This is part of our time to prove to them and show to them we are the good guys. They can trust us and we’re there if they need us. We probably had close to 1,000 people come out in two hours. We make it very family, kid-friendly. Kids can touch the animals. Animals are roaming around, hopefully in the farm. We got pictures with Santa, the arts and craft for the kids. We try to make it such a fun day for the kids in this community and their families to come out and just do so much stuff. They just love being out there. The kids cry when the parents are loading them up to go. They don’t want to leave the farm. I know that’s a lot of work for us to get that farm ready, all the team members out there in different stations with animals, and make the farm ready for 1,000 people. But it’s worth it. We do it every year for Easter on the farm, Christmas on the farm, open days. It’s a lot of work. All these events, all the community policing, all the stuff we do is a lot of work, but it pays off. We can’t be afraid of hard work. We have to do the right thing. I believe that our efforts, for the most part, are positive.”
The animals are all rescued.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “These are wayward, neglected, tortured, abandoned animals that would have been euthanized, that we’ve taken in our home. This is a permanent forever home where they can be cared for, loved, and the kids in this community get a chance to love them as well. See and enjoy them. It’s a win/win for everybody involved. The people out there do outstanding work.”
The tree house murder case, a very high profile case over the past few years, came to a conclusion recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This case spanned over seven years ago, and this was a case that the sheriff’s office brought forward. It was a difficult, challenging case in so many ways. We had a man who was arrested as co conspirator in a murder. This was a drug ripoff gone bad, where one person was killed, one person was almost killed, and a robbery for drugs that took place with three individuals. Of course, one individual went to trial and was found guilty of the murder. One individual pled guilty to robbery charges and became a cooperating defendant. This trial went on for a long time. High priced attorneys were involved. While in jail, he married the co owner of the CrossFit empire. So he went from a homeless person using drugs to a person who was married to a multi millionaire who’s put up his $2 million bond to get him out, paid for all his attorneys. It turned into a courtroom nightmare. It turned into a courtroom TV, media around the local area, state, nation. So it became a really difficult, challenging thing for the sheriff’s office, without a doubt. He proclaimed his innocence on court and TV and everywhere else in social media and TV shows and was becoming a personality, and he was loving the fact that one day he’s a homeless individual, next day, he’s a personality, even though it was based on murder and robbery and drugs. The first trial came up to a hung jury. It’s going to come up for a retrial and at some point in time, he approached the state attorney’s office about taking a plea agreement. Ultimately, the state attorney discussed it with me, and he pled no contest to the robbery involved. He was not the person that committed the murder, but was a complicit participant. But he took a no contest plea to the robbery charge, was sentenced as a felon. So he’s a convicted felon, two years sentenced. This was a closure that we did our job, we had the right person, and all the naysayers, and we had some people beat us up and targeting us, and saying that they were supporting him and that we were fabricating evidence. It was sad to see that local paper attack us, but then they were vindicated, we got the right person, and he’s been held accountable, and there is some accountability and closure.”