Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM for an update of what’s going on in Monroe County.
The Marathon Seafood Festival certainly affected traffic.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I love that event. What a great turnout. We’ve got that dialed in. That’s one of the biggest events but also one of the safest and well organized events. Everybody has to be involved to make this thing happen. Sheriff’s Office, obviously you were there for security protection, traffic control. One of the biggest part of our stuff is trying to make sure that we have deputies inside the event to make sure that we have a good presence, we can respond quickly in any incidents, although we just never have any real incident there other than maybe dehydration checkpoints. On the highway, we have a bunch of officers out there with a tent, right next to the road, crossing pedestrians and packs groups of people. Our goal is to safely pass across people, but also keep that traffic flowing and we’re able to keep the traffic flowing with very minimal backups. Backups were never more than a quarter mile. So that’s a success. The weather was so perfect, great music all day long. The food was fabulous, 200 plus vendors, activities for the kids. Every year, this place it just, it’s just a hit. I’m always glad to go see people spend time, be part of the event, be part of the solution to make it safe and secure. It’s just a great time. You get a chance to see so many nice people you haven’t seen for a long time and friends and co workers and so I think it was a great event. Someone didn’t go, they missed it. They need to go next year.”
It certainly takes a lot of planning to make this safety happen.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We planned this months and months ahead of time. We have to have security teams, traffic control teams. We get out there early to help set up with trustees from the Double R Bead and Breakfast. We generally bring out a sergeant, and five trustees to help set the event up. Every day we have a deputy and probably four to five trustees that are going around in carts picking up trash, emptying trash cans, put new bags and liners. That’s for both Saturday and Sunday. Then this week coming up, we’ll send a crew up again to help tear down all the tents and chairs and trash cans. That’s something we do to try to be a good partner to make this happen. It takes us time, money and effort to get these trustees there so much and have to supervise them. But it’s important that we be part of the solution and we be a good team player.”
Construction congestion will also be seen at Cudjoe Key around the 23 mile marker.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This area is about a two mile long area of construction, which is current and pending. So as you go through there, you just see two different projects going on. I was glad we finally got the speed reduced to a safer speed limit to 35 for obvious reasons. There’s better signage now. Better barricades, reduced speed limits, I think it’s a lot safer now. I feel better for our citizens and visitors be traveling through there. Obviously are concerns next are with the business owners who are going to be adversely impacted by a lot of construction going on. So I’ve been working closely with the business owners and FDOT, trying to mitigate how we can least impact those businesses because this going to be going on for a while. The businesses there are really, really concerned. They’re in season now. This is their chance to make the most money when this construction is getting ready to do a lot of lane shifts and different stuff occurring. So they’re concerned. I’m concerned, I have put all parties in touch and we’ve had some conversations to try to make it a little smoother, and get questions asked and answered. So we just always want to try to be the middle person or be part of the solution and try to make things a little bit better. Not just focus on crime, but focus on quality of life and partnerships and relationships and communication and cooperation.”
A wave runner death over the weekend happened in Key West and a death in the Lower Keys happened on March 8 due to an electrocution of workers doing some landscaping.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “It’s such a sad situation. A landscaping service had an extension ladder up against a large palm tree, trimming the coconuts and trees. At some point time, two of the workers went to move the ladder to take it down. While doing so, made contact with a high voltage power line and immediately it just electrocuted both of them. One succumbed to the injuries. One was critical. We put on Trauma Star. It was assigned to a Major Crime Unit, just a sad, sad situation. Just a freak accident. But again, it reminds our people anytime you’re doing anything there any electrical poles and power lines and wires, whether it be off a pole or going to a house, you’ve got to be careful when it comes to pruners, ladders, any type of high level equipment that you don’t make contact with those wires. The outcomes are deadly.”
A traffic stop for a Key Largo man resulted in possession of methamphetamine and heroin being discovered.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We talk every week about drug charges and traffic. We keep saying traffic is the number one complaint we get. So I really want my guys and gals to, besides being in neighborhoods, to focus on the safety of our highways, to help out with DHSMV and FHP who just don’t have the staffing to do everything. But while we’re out there doing routine traffic stops, I always talk about they very routinely turn into some other related crime. A lot of times they involve drugs and we want our people to be vigilant to try to focus on criminal activity while on traffic stops. So here we’re conducting a routine traffic stop, it did turn it into a narcotics investigation. It turned into methamphetamines and other related paraphernalia and signs of drug trade, again appears to be more than just personal use. So we were able to get this person off the road for traffic violations, get drugs off the streets, hold this person accountable, send him down to Key West to the Rick Ramsey Bed and Breakfast and keep sending the message that we’re not going to tolerate this here in the Keys.”
Sometimes traffic stops can lead to fleeing and eluding. That happened in Sugarloaf Key recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “The Boulevard, speed limit’s 30 miles an hour. The officer is out on a traffic stop for another speeder when he has a rear antenna, he clocks the car doing 47 approaching him in a 30. So he steps out. He stands in the lane of traffic and he’s trying to flag the car over to conduct another traffic stop on site. When the car changes lanes, the driver and I think four additional people in the car. The driver says he makes eye contact, sees the person looking at him, smiling and laughing. Deputies says he’s flagged him over, trying to flag them over and the car this goes around and keeps on going. The deputy runs back up to the first car, gives the guy his driver’s license, gives him a warning, runs back to his car and then chases the car down and gets the car stopped further down the road. Then subsequently does arrest of the driver for failing to yield, not stopping and fleeing. So it just doesn’t make any sense. You’re approaching a patrol car with lights on in the first place. You see these cars lights so far down the road, it’s a 30 mile an hour zone, slow down and the Move Over Act does require you to change lanes clearly.”