Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM for an update of what’s going on in the county.
A structural fire happened yesterday.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “That was back on Yellowtail Drive, which is behind the airport in Marathon. It was a structure fire. We don’t get many of those, but the sheriff’s office got called to a structure fire in late afternoon. We responded right away, and immediately we got there, we were trying to check the residence for anybody living inside. And neighbors were there, and we determined pretty quickly it was unoccupied, which was good. We did the best we could to secure the neighborhood, the perimeter and Fire Rescue responded pretty quickly. When we arrived, the house was fully engulfed, the back part of the house was flames above the roof. So it got going pretty fast. Our friends in Marathon Fire got on scene, did a really good job to put the fire out, pretty severe damage to the house, though, you can imagine, the damage is pretty extensive, between the fire, the smoke and all the water to put the fire out, a lot of damage for somebody, unfortunately, but we’re glad no one was in the home, no one got hurt, and we could contain it to one home versus multiple homes.”
An intoxicated man at a gas station at 2:43 in the morning caused some trouble in Key Largo recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We got a call about an intoxicated male. This is a 40 year old male from Key Largo, who my deputies are very well know with this individual, we’ve been out with him multiple times. His antics, his drinking, his stupid behavior. He’s drunk, he was yelling and screaming. He was punching the door. Patrons could not get in. He would not let him inside the business. So we did respond. We found him in the parking lot, still going crazy, yelling, screaming, to the point that we ultimately did have to arrest him for disorderly intoxication, for his behavior. But this is just sad, we always say not much good happens after midnight.”
A 46-year-old woman from Miami was charged with DUI and reckless driving recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We always want to thank our good Samaritans, our general public, who calls unusual behavior in. A vehicle noticed this car was driving erratically. Speeds were going super slow then super fast. So we got the call, we sent units out to look for the car. We located the car going northbound about the 60 mile marker. During that time, the speeds were as indicated. They were as low as 30 miles an hour on US 1 and then they were as high as 90 miles an hour on US 1. So speeds were very erratic. The driving was erratic. We eventually did stop the car about the 77 mile marker where we found this female in the car was extremely intoxicated. Ultimately, she did go to jail for DUI and reckless operation. So we’re just thankful she didn’t kill herself or somebody else in the course of this behavior. She’s that intoxicated, she can’t even determine speeds, let alone lanes. We’re just lucky that no one got killed. And that’s our job is to get these impaired drivers off the road as soon as possible, before they hurt themselves or somebody else.”
There have been a number of DUI’s and reckless driving charges as of late.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “There’s always a correlation for the most part. And the correlation generally is impaired driver. The one last week was a similar situation, a car called in for excessive driving. We got behind the vehicle about the 55 Mile Marker, Grassy Key southbound, and the car speeds were in excess of 100 miles an hour. We got the car initially stopped around the 55 Mile Marker, just south of there, by the airport. Then during contact with the driver, the driver was intoxicated. We tried to get the driver out of the vehicle for sobriety test, and driver did not want any part of that, put the car in drive and took off. And then a pursuit continued on. We had to spike out the car tires. We spiked out three out of four tires. The car eventually came to stop around 62nd Street. Again, the impaired driver was taken into custody. So lot of our speeding is related to people who are intoxicated and are unsafe to drive while doing the speed limit, at normal behavior, let alone twice the speed limit. So these are scary for a lot of reasons. It’s scary because the excessive speed and they’re scary because of the impaired driver behind the wheel. Then for us, it’s difficult and challenging because it’s dangerous for the law enforcement officers who have to try to pursue these cars at 100-something miles an hour and also have to be on the side of the road trying to deploy Stinger spike system as the car is barreling at them over 100 miles an hour with an impaired driver, so many unsafe factors are involved with this, but we have to get these people off the road. They’re a direct threat to the public safety. These are 4,000 pound missiles going down the road that we have to intercept before something bad happens.”
More than 150 pounds of marijuana were collected from seven trash bags recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This was the Florida Department of Transportation maintenance crew subcontractor who was cleaning up, picking up trash, doing some maintenance work around one of the concrete barriers, about the 107 mile marker, and they did see seven bags and black plastic bags they thought was missing trash. They opened it up to find there was seven bags full of marijuana. It looked like it was relatively fresh, or like some type of a grow. It looked like maybe someone had a grow somewhere around there, maybe in wooded areas. There’s some heavy wooded areas around the 107 and maybe they just harvested, and we think took it out in stages there. So, they could come back and pick it up maybe after hours. But we think it was a local grow that was just harvested, put there for staging until it could pick up at a later time. So we did take it into custody, it will be disposed of, but we ruined somebody’s day, I think.”
The new water main installation will begin near the high school in Key Largo soon.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’re very concerned about this. This is a very difficult, challenging year up around the school. A lot of factors going in there. We think this is going to be really a big impact on traffic flow, people’s time to get to and from work, busses, kids, a lot of stuff here. Aqueduct authority trying to work on a management plan with FOT, it’s called the MOT, management of traffic. Sheriff’s office has a lot of concerns as well, and it’s looking to be about a 30 day window that we’re going to be dealing with some extreme traffic issues. So frustrating, but it was a tough balance. We’ve got to do the best we can to mitigate the impacts. But in the same token, the aqueduct authority does have to replace that water main, and this is going to take a long time. This water main has to go from Key West to Florida City, 126 miles long. They can only do, I think, about 10 miles a year. This is going to be a multi year project that we’re going to be dealing with. Sometimes the project can be off the main road and have little to no impact on traffic, but sometimes it’s right in the heart of a bridge or a school or some road area where the impacts are brutal. So it’s concerning, we’re going to work on it the best we can. But when it gets going and you have lane shifts, lanes shut down, heavy equipment, people get mad to the sheriff’s office lot of times that we have to do something, but there’s only so much we can do. We can’t do miracles, and it’s not our project. The sheriff does have a lot of authority to take action if need be.”
The water main construction earlier this year was retooled.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I had that project shut down. It was not a popular decision by the people doing the construction work, the construction workers and the aqueduct authority was not happy with me. But we have to mitigate. We had to stop, take a breath, reevaluate. The plan was not working, and come back with a plan which could better work and lessen the impacts on the general public. And we did that. We came up solutions, suggestions, how we can make it better. We hope we don’t have to do that this time. We hope that the early talking, planning, best case scenario, we hope that impacts are minimum. If not, I’ll talk to the aqueduct authority again and try to get some compliance. I don’t think I’ll have to call that out again and shut it down, but just had to do what was best for the general public at the time, until we can get a better plan. We hope that this time, we’ll have a better plan out there from the aqueduct authority, and their contractor. So they have the contract company, which does construction all the time on the roads, who puts together these plans for the most part. But we’re always concerned about these outside construction companies that are trying to put a plan that they think is best for them, not the general public. There has to be a balance between the safety of the crews, we know that, but safety and flow of traffic for the citizens too, as well. A lot of time the outside contractors don’t take consideration what impact it has on the general public, busses, kids, school, jobs, businesses, their stances doesn’t matter. They’re willing to shut the entire road down because it’s not their roads, not their community. They’re just workers trying to come in get the job done as fast as they can and cut the bottom line.”