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.
A motorist fell asleep at the wheel on the Harris Gap Channel Bridge recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is sad. Nice holiday weekend. People are coming down to the Keys to enjoy the weekend. Three people on board this vehicle. It was a Chevy Silverado picked up truck. The driver fell asleep. When he did they went off the road, off the bridge, into the water. Jettison out there, pretty high speed, but thank God, no one got seriously hurt. But the car floated for a little bit. All three eventually got out and swam to shore. Vehicle went about 100 plus feet out before it’s submerged and sunk and sat on the bottom, so we had police, fire, rescue out there trying to deal with that, and at some point in time we had to do a complete road closure, where we had a class B wrecker come out there and had to straight cables out with divers drag it to shore, then pull it out onto the shoreline, so it did cause some traffic delays on the holiday weekend, but overall we’re glad no one got seriously hurt, but it was a total loss to the vehicle for sure.”
A boat was damaged on the Harris Gap Channel Bridge recently as well.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “The Harris Gap Channel bridge is about the 17 mile marker around the Sugarloaf area. It’s a small bridge, so there was a boat, it was a center console, it was probably about a 22 foot boat, thereabouts, going to try to come under the bridge, but the T top was too high, and it could not get under the bridge, unbeknownst to the operator, must have been a novice operator, I presume. So, the T top struck the bottom part of the bridge, which ripped the tee top off away from the pole, and then went backwards towards the stern, and behind the console was the two occupants, the operator and a passenger, who had the center console come back on them. One person had a severe trauma alert to the leg with a severely broken leg to the point that it met trauma protocols. Our friends at fire rescue arrived to deal with the situation. Trauma alert was a warranted. We launched the sheriff’s office trauma star helicopter, and we had to airvac that individual, 20 something year old male, to Miami for a higher level of care into the boat crash, so very unusual to have two incidents at the same bridge in a 24 hour span, but that’s what we had going on at that location.”
Suspected drugs were found at Long Key State Park recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “As I always talked to you about these drug cases, it continues to show that drugs are constantly being transported in the waters off the US and the Florida Keys on the Caribbean side, so we did get in contact from the park ranger at Long Key State Park, found a kilo of cocaine on the beach. It was turned over again to the sheriff’s office, and then Customs Border Protections. So it’s always the mystery of drug smuggling in the Keys, is alive and well, but we always talk about it, much as we appreciate how much drugs are turned over and found by boaters and beachgoers and residents behind their canals, we always wonder how much is picked up and is not turned over, and we’ve seen that over the years where those drugs have hit the streets, been sold to the streets, or even turned into people hurting or killing each other over all the drugs that were found, but we are thankful to have those turned in. When they are turned in, those packages, they’re analyzed for intelligence reasons. We look at the packages, government, and a lot of these packages that have these lions or other markings, they’re not there to be funny, they’re there to identify who owns that load. Sometimes drugs will come in where drugs are going to multiple different sources, and certain markings will indicate who it’s going to, or sometimes the marks indicate who made the drugs, what cartel. So they’re looking at how long has it been in the water based on growth of barnacles or any type of algae. They’re trying to determine if they could put it to a certain load they knew that was supposed to be coming in, they’re trying to determine who are they going to, person or persons, where were they coming from, origin wise, what country? So they can gather a lot of intelligence before it’s destroyed, the chance of tying it to someone for criminal charges is almost zero when you find something just floated to shore. It’s just again more for intelligence gathering, and to get it so it doesn’t wind up on the streets in some manner or form.”
A 35 year old man from Key Largo was charged with child neglect after leaving a 12 year old unsupervised, and the child consumed THC.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Sad case, definitely poor parenting by this father. I believe the father and mother are separated in some type of a domestic situation where they have shared custody. At this point in time, the husband or the father in this case had to go to work, did not make arrangements for anybody to take care of the children, so his answer was just to leave these two young kids at home unattended to have the 12 year old watch and take care of the four year old and a 12 year old just does not have the capacity to deal with emergencies, take care of a young child, let alone themselves. And on top of that, the father did leave THC vape pens, cartridges in plain view in accessible areas to these young children, and one of these children, a 12 year old, did get a hold of the THC vape pen and did ingest the THC, which turned into a medical emergency, but there was no one at the house to help him. Where, thank God, he was in enough condition where he’s able to call his mother, and the mother then called 911 who responded and found this child in distress. The mother also responded, the child had to be taken to Mariners Hospital. We notified DCF, Department of Children Family Services. Obviously, we need them to be involved in these situations. Ultimately, the father was arrested for child neglect related charges. We’re just thankful that the situation didn’t get any worse, but you cannot leave children watching children, and you cannot leave children unattended. There has to be a plan. Kids are a lot of responsibility, but if you’re going to have children, you have to step up to the plate and be a parent and look out for their best well-being. In this case, that did not happen.”
Another child neglect case found children left in cribs at a resort in the Upper Keys.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is ridiculous. This is stupid. They’re at the Reef House Resort, really nice resort down here on vacation. They have two young infants that are in cribs, how small these kids are. These are newborns, and they decided they want to go hang out and be on vacation and party, and they didn’t want to deal with the kids, so they just left the kids in the cribs. They went down to the pool ordering drinks at the pool, hanging out, drinking, partying, and having a good old time, and video shows at least an hour that these kids were unattended, these infants, and we got involved because housekeeping heard the kids screaming in the room, just frantic crying and screaming. So police got called, we had to get in there, and the employees went looking for the parents. By time we get there, the parents later on said, oh, they were fine. We had a baby monitor, we were monitoring, but it wasn’t working. It wasn’t anywhere near them. They weren’t monitoring. If you were monitoring, you would have heard the frantic screams from these infants, and you would have rushed right back there to render some aid or see what was going on, so they just decided they were just going to leave the kids in the crib and let them fend for themselves while they were drinking at the pool, so we did arrest these two numb skulls. This is poor parenting at its best, and it’s sad to see this display of adults, parents willing to leave these kids in harm’s way, and just to fend for themselves. It’s just…it’s hard to understand.”
A 51 year old from Florida City was stopped at a traffic stop, and was charged with possession of cocaine after he attempted to hide drugs on a teenager juvenile who was a passenger.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “A sad situation, but this resulted from a traffic stop. We say how much stuff comes from our just normal traffic enforcement. We stopped the vehicle for expired registrations on the vehicle, and as we were stopping the vehicle, the adult male driver apparently had drugs on board and was worried about getting caught with the drugs, so he did hide over 10 ounces of cocaine on this juvenile, on the pockets, forced him to hold the drugs. We got to the car, we could smell the odor of marijuana coming out of the car. So eventually we did determine to find the drugs on his child, and ultimately we were able to investigate, talk to the child, find out what took place, and this person did hide the drugs on his juvenile, so he was charged with child neglect, trafficking cocaine, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute charges, tampering evidence charges, so multiple charges are coming his way. We did take this child into custody. I’m not sure the relationship between the driver and the juvenile passenger, so I’m not sure if there’s a what that relationship is, but again, several cases involving children. These are all preventable stuff, all people are doing dumb stuff that doesn’t have to happen, but are putting these kids in harm’s way, and we’re going to continue to try to protect the kids in this community, or kids that are living here, or coming down with other people. Most of these people are from Miami-Dade, or other areas that we deal with on a regular basis, but we’re going to protect whoever’s in this jurisdictional area the best we can, and we’re going to hold people accountable, no matter where they live in this area, for crimes that they’re committing or about to commit.”
A 20 year old woman from Miami-Dade County was arrested after leaving a dog in a hot vehicle in Key Largo without food or water.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Thanks for good Samaritans for calling the sheriff’s office otherwise this animal would probably be deceased. We got the call just after six. The witnesses say the dog was in the car for an excess of an hour, so probably around 5o’clock which is still pretty warm. Those cars get heated up immediately. Windows up, AC, car turned off, locked up, small little dog inside the car, no water, and that car had to be in excess of 100 degrees easy. So, we did get a call. The officers get the car unlocked, get the dog out. We contacted our friends in SPCA to come take care of this animal, get this checked out, get some water and food. We did contact the owner, a 20 year old female from Miami, who said she just forgot and left the dog in the car. Again, if you’re going to have animals, you have to be responsible, and if you’re not going to be responsible and don’t have the ability to take care of animals, then don’t have an animal, or don’t travel with them. If you’re just going to think you’re just going to lock them in a car and leave them in the car, it’s just not fair. The dog is in there, barking, panting, and distress while you’re doing whatever you’re doing.”
The Fourth of July went well in the Keys.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “It’s an all hands on deck Fourth of July weekend for my team members, and this is a Friday, Saturday, Sunday event, as we know, this year it’s one of the busiest weekends. My team members have to be out there trying to deal with all the traffic and the chaos in the waters and all the calls we just talked about and firework calls and parades and being in places, and so I want to thank my team members for doing such an outstanding job to continue to protect this community and make it one of the best places ever to live, work, and play.”