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.
While a number of businesses are closed for President’s Day, the sheriff’s office doesn’t get a day off.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We don’t get any days off, we work 365. We’ve got to be available each and every day, so men and women in the sheriff’s office continue to respond and patrol and that’s just part of our job is public safety. We’ve got to make sure we’re there for our citizens quickly and take care of business.”
Over the weekend in Little Torch Key, a disagreement escalated into handgun charges.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is sad. This is a dispute between two neighbors. Neighbors should be friends. They should be helping each other and there for each other, but one neighbor apparently had a dog, which was loud, barking, making noise, and the other neighbor went over to confront the owner of the dog about the noise, and a verbal argument ensued. Then the neighbor who came over to complain came over with a weapon in his waistband, and during the course of the argument, lifted his shirt up, brandishing the weapon. Obviously, that’s implied threat. So he lifts his shirt up, showing a firearm in his waistband. So the other neighbor backed up right away, did what we want him to do, called the sheriff’s office. We responded out there to investigate it. We did determine it happened, and we ultimately did arrest the person for improper exposition of the firearm, because you can’t just openly display it, and you can’t do it in that threatening manner. So we hate to see this. This only erodes the relationship, which appears to be strained already, between neighbors. But we have to hold people accountable and stop them and educate others to someone else’s stupidity that this is not going to be tolerated. You cannot just do this and if you do this, for every action there is a reaction, and you will be held accountable. That had to happen.”
A sheriff’s deputy is also being held accountable for potential stalking charges.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is sad, but just like families, I’ve got a family with 600 people in my family and family members sometime make poor decisions. Just like we have to hold our general public accountable, I hold my people accountable. I don’t hide our dirty laundry. Most of the time we talk about the really good stuff that the men and women in the sheriff’s office are doing, but every now and then, there’s something bad, and I always say you’re going to hear the good from me, but you’re going to hear the bad as well. So I did a press release. I always identify when our people screw up, and it appears to be a domestic related matter, a young officer, a young lady, on and off relationship, and at some point in time, appears that she was more off than he was, and he started trying to call her and text her and follow her and ride by the house and trying to get her back, go by her a place of business. You can only go so far before it becomes unwanted and becomes potential stalking that you are going above, just trying to have a conversation or re engage. So this appears to be that part. The young lady made a complaint to us, wanted to pursue charges. We looked into it criminally and administratively. We believe this has merits. We brought the case before the state attorney, who believed, as well, that the elements of the crime, a misdemeanor stalking occurred. So we did arrest our own person, and he, right now, is subject for a predetermination hearing to see what his future employment looks like. He’s been with the sheriff’s office about a year and a half, works out of my central station. I hate to see this type of stuff, but we just have to hold ourselves accountable as well.”
Charges of attempted human smuggling from last summer also came to a conviction recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I think you probably saw my press release, my frustration with the United States Attorney’s Office for not doing their job. Which is interesting, that this is what this new administration wants to take place, is hard stances on human trafficking and human smuggling. Case occurred in Monroe last year, where we had a great case, working with our local and state partners, of a smuggling operation occurring from multiple countries. It’s like a tri country area where we had Ecuadorians, Chinese nationals, we had Cubans, and we had someone else, I think from Honduras, maybe. So this was well organized. They would stage in Bahamas and then shoot across. They had up on Card Sound Road, a vehicle staged waiting to pick up the migrants as they were coming in. They would use a satellite phone to call the US and make sure there’s nothing unusual, and get the coast to clear, to shoot across from Bahamas to the US, which is about 60 miles. On the way in, when they get so close in, they would call a fake distress call that a boat was sinking, 10 miles away from where they wanted to make landfall, to try to move any potential vessels to that location, knowing that even if the vessels are waiting, they have to go to save lives first. So very organized. Then when they got to land, they loaded the vehicles and vans and drove them up to Dade County. We had all the players involved. We had the people running the boats, people running the cars. We had the Chinese and Ecuadorian nationals, and it was a great case. We had admissions by some people involved, and then CBP, Custom Border Protection wanted to go forward. The US Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute. This is like the second time on a beautiful case, just bow-wrapped for them they just walked away from it. Myself and the state attorney discussed it and we said, we’re not going to let this happen. If the United States Attorney is not going to do his job, and is going to fail to enforce United States Code, we’re going to do it the best we can at state level, which is more difficult than federally. So we did get a conviction on one of the cases. The other ones are still pending. Obviously it’s not the jail sentence you would have gotten if you would have gone through federal courts. I think he got eventually, 120 day jail time, three years probation, some other related stuff. He, as well, was a migrant who was affiliated with the TEA gang members, we know one of the most violent Venezuelan gang anywhere. He was a gang member. So we’re talking about a really bad person. When he got to the United States Attorney’s Office, they said, we don’t care, let him go. Let them all go in the country. So really frustrating by myself and the state attorney, but again, we’re just not going to tolerate crap and if they won’t do their job, we’re going to do everything we can to keep the citizens in this community safe and secure and make sure the rule of law is enforced.”
A case from October 2024 resulted in an arrest last Wednesday of a man from Little Torch for illegal sexual conduct with a 15 year old victim.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a delayed case. The report came in sometime after. This is not uncommon. Victims are terrified, scared. They’re generally very young, so they’re not apt to initially come forward for a lot of reasons, but later on, when they get a little more mature, understand what took place, a little more confident to come forward. Had come forward and in another county where they reside now, and it was referred back to us and working with that county and this county, we did a comprehensive investigation, determined that we believe the act did occur. Again, our friends at State Attorney’s Office are involved in this one, and we need them to say they think it’s a good case to go forward and that they’re on board. So we did ultimately arrest this individual for these charges, and again, going to continue to hold people accountable, but it’s a challenging time in our job in law enforcement, and it’s always challenging, especially historical cases which have some age behind them, make it a lot more challenging. But we understand why there’s a delay sometimes in coming forward, but doesn’t stop our vigilance to be aggressive, to try to hold people accountable, even if there’s been a lapse in time.”
There was also a case of illegal harvesting of parrot fish in Islamorada.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We want to help aid and assist our friends in FWC, which have staffing woes as well and we want to try to protect our environment from these constant barrages, attacks on our environment. We have to make sure there’s something there for future generations and if we let these people keep doing what they’re doing and don’t hold them accountable, there’ll be nothing left for the people today and the people tomorrow, our livelihood, our commercial fishing, our tourism. People come here to fish, dive, snorkel, catch a few fish. These poachers continue to attack our environment, and we’re going to continue to do what we can and a good partnership again with our state’s attorney’s office and judges who all take hard line stances on poaching in our waterways.”
The gigantic nautical market will be this weekend in Islamorada, so traffic might be a bit slow.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is one of the most congested events in Islamorada, which is busy anyway. We’re going to have officers set up front. We’ll have two crossing locations in front of Founders Park. You’ll see tents and officers out there to direct people. We’re going to try to move people in packs. We just don’t want people crossing where they want, and we want them to cross at two designated locations, and we want them to wait for a couple minutes until we get a crowd and we’ll move that crowd at one time. We can’t keep stopping traffic every time one or two people walk up, because then traffic will never get moving. So we’re trying to balance safety of citizens crossing first, public safety, obviously, and flow movement of traffic, of people who have to go from born A to point B, because it’s a terribly congested area. So look for the officers as you’re driving in that area. Put your phones down. Distracted Driving only can result in bad stuff, the fact that distracted driving is 10 times more dangerous than drunk driving. So that’s the last thing you want to do, is be playing with your phone when people are stopping, pulling in and on the road, abruptly braking or crossing in other areas that are not authorized or not controlled by the sheriff office. So just pay attention a little bit and expect delays. If you’re going to go to Miami for an appointment or flight or travel or whatever it may be, you either want to leave early or plan on sitting in traffic, because once it gets going in the morning, traffic will back up for a couple miles. It’s starts at eight o’clock on Saturday and starts at nine o’clock on Sunday, and it gets backed up fast. So we say, either leave early, six, seven hit the road, get through that area before it starts getting congested, you’ll be just fine. If you wait and you may be sitting in traffic, then don’t be frustrated because you knew, or should have known. Again. It’s probably the busiest two days of the year in Islamorada for traffic flow. So if you don’t have to go past that area, we tell people don’t go. Before then run your errands, get your gas, get to the grocery store, see your buddy, do what you’ve got do. If you don’t have to transition north or south, passing Founders Park this Saturday and Sunday, I personally recommend you don’t.”