Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM yesterday morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
The holidays are a busy time for the sheriff’s department.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I just love this time of year for sure, yes, but we are seeing traffic a little heavier, so I’m driving down the road every day seeing a few more cars. We know the day after Christmas, the roads are going to really be packed, and we start getting a full season, but we are starting to see more traffic congestions already this time of year.”
Remember there are so many means of transportation in the Keys, there’s no reason to get behind the wheel if you’re intoxicated.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We want you to have a good time and go to parties and events, but if you’re going to drink, have a designated driver. Call an Uber, call a taxi. There’s so many ways and means to not be part of the problem and not destroy your life or somebody else’s. Too many can destroy your life forever.”
Charlotte County Deputy Corporal Elio Diaz was shot and killed in the line of duty recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “So sad. I got a contact last night about 6pm let me know that just occurred, a long term police officer, Deputy Sheriff from the southwest area of Florida, Charlotte County, did a traffic stop in the car in the parking lot, the male in the car jumped out with a rifle and immediately shot and killed the deputy sheriff just immediately, a short time later, they located them. Traffic stop was occurred again. Deputies jumped out. This time the subject was trying to grab the rifle to get back out. They shot and killed the suspect. So, just so sad, but it goes to show you how fast things can happen. You’re in a well lit parking lot of a convenience store doing a traffic stop, and before you get out of your car, somebody jumps out with a rifle and just assassinates you. So just, man, I tell you, it just goes to show how difficult and challenging is to be a police officer in America and what these officers do to put their lives on the line to make sure that the rest of us can sleep safe and secure at night, and make sure this country is still one of the best countries ever. But you know, it’s a war zone sometimes, unfortunately.”
Michael Stapleford of KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM pointed out, “We cannot express our gratitude enough for all that you and your department do each and every day, and that is Key West Police Department and all of our fellow officers there in in the line of duty each and every day. We are certainly very indebted to all that you all go through and put yourselves in the line of duty each and every day.”
A threat was called in to Marathon High School recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “You are seeing across the nation more of these type of incidents, these swatting calls, where people are calling in false violent crimes. A caller sent information in said there was 10 pipe bombs set up around the school and that four armed individuals were going to come and assault the school. So while we didn’t really think it was probably viable with that much weaponry and personnel to be occurring, but we take every threat serious. So when a threat like that comes in, it’s all hands on deck. I send all my patrol deputies, all my detectives, admin personnel, special response personnel, so those who were around that school saw that school locked down, and saw police vehicles everywhere. We have to evacuate these kids to a safe zone. Then we have to search and secure this entire school. It’s a pretty big school, so it’s very manpower intensive. In the end, we determined that there was no threat. It was just a fake call, but it does tie up police, fire, rescue resources. It does impede the ability for students to have education. It does put a fear in the sense of the school, the students, the families, we start receiving phone calls from parents, what’s going on? How’s my kid? What’s happening? We send out a mass alert, as well as the school board to try to give information out rapidly to the parents, to try to de escalate, so they can be calmer and make decisions or know what’s going on, versus being emotional, irrational and chaotic. We want to try to contain, control a potential crisis situation, and the way we have to do that is by being professional, sending out quick, rapid information, educating the parents and people involved what’s happening, and trying to contain and control these situations as fast as possible, within our perimeters.”
Has there been any development as far as finding out who may have been responsible for this incident?
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Not yet. It’s still on our investigation. We’ve contacted our friends at the FBI to help work, aid and assist with us. These are very difficult, challenging cases. People just don’t use a regular, normal cell phone number, which can call back or have the number. So these are difficult ghost numbers, stuff done via computers. So we’re looking into it. We would hope we could find somebody, but the odds are lower than they are more positive.”
The sheriff’s office is also asking for the public’s help for anyone who has recently purchased fishing or marine gear online, particularly on Facebook marketplace because three lower keys male teenagers were arrested last Wednesday on marine related burglaries and sales.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’ve had multiple burglaries of vessels, fishing rods, reels, spear guns, other related marine equipment. So as we’re getting a lot of complaints, we start trying to look into it, canvas neighborhoods, look for ring doorbell cameras, other surveillance cameras. At some point time, we saw kids on bicycles riding away at night time with rods or reels and spear guns. We identified potential leads and suspects. We eventually did interview these kids, talked to the parents, got a search warrant for one of the homes. We recovered some of the stolen property. We had information that some of the other stolen property was tied together and put on a brick and dumped into a canal to be found later on. So over the weekend, I actually brought in a dive team. Sheriff’s office divers on Saturday went down south and dove a canal quarry and recovered a bunch of rods and other related stuff that was part of the stolen property. We think there was a large amount of gear stuff that was stolen. We’ve recovered some, but not as much as out there. We know that they were using fake names, aliases to sell all this year on marketplace, Facebook, offer up type apps. So yes, if people bought something from these kids, or you have any questions about them, we’d rather you obviously contact us, try to return that property to rightful owners, hold these kids accountable. So these juvenile threats are increasing. One of these kids has only been in the Keys less than a year, and moved here with his family. I think he’s already been arrested five times. So it’s frustrating. These kids get away with a lot of stuff because they’re so young, we have to hold them accountable. We don’t usually name children. But when they’re doing so many crimes, this is crime after crime after crime, these felony burglaries and grand theft and dealing in stolen properties, we think at some point in time that other parents have a right to know who these kids are, so they can determine whether they want their kids to hang out with these kids, whether these kids are welcome at their house. It’s just important, sometimes, the betterment of the majority versus the individual. Some people think that we should protect the identity of these kids not to ruin their lives. Well, they ruin their own lives. Rick Ramsey’s not ruining their lives. They’re doing it every day they go out there and commit crimes against people, commit burglaries, steal people’s property, sell people’s stolen property. They’re doing it to themselves. We have to engage them, educate them, get your court system involved, try to correct their behavior, try to get them back on track, if we can, so they can be good stewards in the community. Hiding and shielding their names, or trying to protect their identities, does not help. It only hurts the overall mission to try to get these kids to stop committing crimes and be good stewards in our community, if not, we’re going to keep arresting them, and when they turn adults, these sanctions will be that more difficult on them. But again, we have to warn other parents of these bad actors, these bad behaviors, so they can make educated decisions as parents when it comes to the well being of their kids and how these other kids could impact their kids and get them into crime.”
A case from 2020 finally saw an arrest on Tuesday. A man and woman were operating a contracting business and not fulfilling the work. They stole more than $30,000 from a Key Largo victim for dock work that was never completed.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We see these type of frauds occurring a lot. Not uncommon for police agencies to try to say it’s civil in nature, contact your attorney, because they don’t want to deal with it. But MCSO does not do that. These are crimes. A family in Islamorada had contracted a male and female from Miami-Dade County to do dock work and install a couple boat lifts. They had paid in front ahead of time for money paid up ahead of time to get permitting $32,500 and then they could never get the people to start the work, do anything, and eventually these people ghosted them. So years went by, I don’t know why they waited so long to get police involvement, but eventually they called us. We researched the case. We had proof of the payments of the checks. We had to verify that checks were cashed by the parties. We looked to make sure no permits were ever applied for to show that there was no effort to do the work. We were able to prove clearly that they took the money with no intention of ever doing the work. So we did get warrants for their arrest for the fraud and the grand theft, and we’ve arrested them. We’re going to hold them accountable, educate others. Keep sending a message here that we’re not going to allow contractor fraud and these type of things to occur and our citizens be victimized without somebody paying the piper and being held accountable.”
An unlicensed seafood salesman was also cited recently. A 56 year old man out of South Carolina was selling seafood out of a van in Islamorada.
Sheriff Ramsay said this was “very unusual, going door to door, knocking, holding up fish, trying to sell fish. We located the person, he had no licenses. You have to have special licenses to the state of Florida to possess and sell these type of products. We have to clearly be concerned about the hygiene, safety, well being of these foods, which are supposed to be frozen at certain temperatures. But inside this vehicle, they did not have proper refrigeration. Was not sanitized. There was a cat in the vehicle, a cat litter box. We want food to be around, safe, clean areas, all of us. So we did contact our friends at FWC came out as well. We did give this individual notices to appear. It was from South Carolina. We held them accountable, stopped that from occurring. Hopefully we saved somebody from getting sick. Unusual, but as we say, the day of a life of a police officer, they never know what the call is going to be. One minute, it’s theft. The next minute you’re dealing with somebody selling fish door to door. We do it all. We’re a full service agency, and we respond to every call, no matter what it may be.”
A Key West Florida man who had prior felony convictions in DeSoto County, Florida and Virginia Beach, Virginia, was observed wearing dark clothing, and looking inside windows of a closed business in Marathon around midnight recently — and he had weapons on him.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I want to say what a great job to my patrol division. Our job is to prevent and deter crime from occurring, not wait for it to happen. So on patrol, we did see a loitering, prowling late night, early morning, looking into a closed business. In dark clothing and the individual had a backpack on him. As we turned and went out and tried to go out with him, he started rapidly walking away. We had to speed up, catch up to him, detain him. A convicted felon in multiple jurisdictional areas, and he had also on his person, brass knuckles and a butterfly knife. Both are weapons. Both are not lawful. So he was charged with loitering and prowling. Again, we believe he was getting ready to try to break in and burglarize a business, and we prevented a crime from occurring. We hold a criminal accountable for possessing weapons.”