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.
The Emergency Operations Center was a real help with preparations for Hurricane Helene.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “While we’ve really had our fair share amount of hurricanes the last several years, it seems to be the west coast of Florida and the panhandle, who, year after year, is getting storm after storm. There’s another storm right now entering the Gulf, which is projected to impact potentially that same basic area. So for us, we fared very well from a large major category storm, hurricane, but we saw heavy damages on the west coast, from Tampa up, going north into the panhandle, obviously, throughout several states, North Carolina, a lot of area up there with heavy flooding, rivers, dams, overflowing, mudslides. So a lot of your damage really has been out of Florida, a lot of missing people. The storm is widespread. It’s done extensive damage. The damage is likely to be in the billions, and it’s going to have a large impact on, I’m sure, hurricane rates. But the Keys, we’re hurricane ready, we deal with it, and we just have to be vigilant. We’re seeing more and more storms, more powerful storms and interestingly the last three, four, five years that we really have not been ground zero. They’ve gone past us and impacted our friends to the north.”
An emergency on the water happened recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We dealt with an emergency up around the 70 mile marker, the Channel Five Bridge. We had a report of a 911 call, a distress call, female on board a boat, was on a boat with her husband. The husband got in the water, was locked against the bridge. Those bridge areas have heavy current. He got swept up in the current. Could not get back to the boat. Got swept through the bridge to the other side. The wife tried to get the boat going to try to find him and get him, but she ran the boat aground. Now we have two emergencies. We’ve got a woman in distress in a boat who’s aground. Then we’ve got a missing diver who’s swept up in the currents. So we called our friends at the United States Coast Guard, our friends of Fish and Wildlife mission, sheriff’s deputies, all were on the scene to try to help, aid and assist. Eventually, one of my deputies found the male missing diver walking along the side of the road around the 60 something mile marker. So he got washed pretty far out when he got far enough and was able to swim parallel and eventually get out of the stream of the current, eventually to the shore where he was seen by my deputies, walking on the side of the road with his lobster gear in tow. So we grabbed him, brought him back, reunited him, he got with some friends who get another boat to go out there try to rescue the boat. So we talk about the need to dive with a partner. Be careful where you’re diving and your abilities with heavy currents, and make sure if someone else is operating a boat for emergency, that they have the ability to navigate the fleet. So it could have been really bad. It was a teamwork partnership between our state, local, federal, sheriff’s office, FMC, US Coast Guard, all good friends and supporters and partners.”
A disabled bus from Miami Dade caused some traffic tie ups recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “In the Middle and Upper Keys we see these busses all the time. One of the large busses around 55th Street marathon and was trying to transition through the parking lot at the Tom Thumb. The Tom Thumb has a kind of a really steep grade when it leaves the parking lot to a highway. As the bus was trying to navigate the grade, the back part of the bus got stuck in the higher end of the parking lot, where the bus could no longer go forward, nor could they go backwards. It was a stuck and at this point in time, are trying to pull out into both northbound lanes of travel, thus causing a northbound blockage at a main intersection, 55th Street. Sheriff’s Office Deputies were on the scene, trying to do traffic control, reroute the traffic. We called our friends in from the local tow service, brought in what’s called the class C wrecker, a large scale tow truck. Eventually we were able with a large wrecker, remove the bus from the main travel portion of the highway to get that road back open again. Our constant efforts to keep the one road we have open and clear for flow of traffic.”
A DUI arrest was made with a seven year old in the car which resulted in a crash recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Around the 109 mile marker area last night, about four o’clock p.m., an impaired driver, drunk driver in a truck had a seven year old minor child in the vehicle with him, no seat belt, and while navigating around that area of Gilbert’s crashed into a white and red Corvette, and then into a third vehicle, pretty extensive damage because the child was not seat belted, the child got thrusted forward, smashing the face into the dashboard area, knocking a tooth out and receiving other related injuries. Police fire rescue responded, sheriff’s deputies determined that he was intoxicated. We did arrest him for DUI and child neglect. We turned the child over to a family friend and had the vehicle towed. So just another poor decision to drink and drive and to not protect your child and endanger the public safety by impairment, so we’re glad to get him off the road, hold him accountable, but again, just another day in the life of a police officer.”
Two Marathon men were found and charged with illegal dumping and littering recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This happened on 20th Street in Marathon, where our listeners have heard us talk about the homeless population, and lately, a lot of batteries and assaults and crimes taking place and drugs out there. We’ve tried to manage that difficult population. We went out there and saw a lot of a larger amount of dumping and trashing occurring from two particular people. We gave them the opportunity to pick it up, clean it up, and to try to work with them. We came back some point in time later, a couple days later, to find the situation was worse, that they not only did not heed the warning, did not clean up their mess, but continued to pile on. So ultimately, we did arrest these two people for the dumping. We’re just not going to allow anybody to destroy our environment, and we’re going to protect it, whether it be on land or sea, and we’re going to hold people accountable and arrest them if they’re dumping and trashing our environment. Then on the waterways, my marine officers remain busy. Every week we’re making case after case on the shorelines, on the waters for resource violations. We had a case over the weekend with 17 undersized fish, one of my officers that worked and made an arrest on, people were coming down, attacking and destroying and looting and just robbing this environment clean, and they’re going to destroy this environment with their poaching if we don’t remain vigilant and stop this and send these strong messages and have strong enforcement, which occurs between our partners FWC, sheriff’s office, United States Coast Guard, the agencies working together to protect our resources, land and sea.”
The land on 20th Street is actually state land.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “That area is owned by Florida Department of Transportation. The new law comes into place will put restrictions on people just camping anywhere they want. It’s going to make it a crime. It’s going to get the ability for municipalities, city or county, to designate an area no longer than a year as camping. But if they do, they have to provide certain services, bathrooms, security, mental health services. So if an area is designated for people that can hang out and camp, whoever owns the property and designated as such will have to have a financial burden impacted. But again, they can only keep it as such for a year. After a year they’d have to disband and disperse it. So it doesn’t resolve any type of homeless issues in regards to where people can stay, but it will protect our public our public access, our businesses, our railways, from being turned into tent cities, shelters, living on the side of road, living in front of someone’s business. We’ve seen this in other jurisdictions where they had tent after tent, garbage, trash all laid out in front of people’s businesses, where people can’t get to and from businesses, or people were afraid to go there, or people just urinating everywhere. So we see this as a means to protect people’s interest, rights, businesses. Some people think it’s an attack on homeless. I don’t think it is. I think it’s a protection of people’s right of ways, and people’s right to feel safe and secure.”
Will the 20th Street encampment be illegal after that law goes into effect?
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Technically, it will not be legal unless the state comes in and says okay, we’re going to let you stay here up to the year, and they would have to put in again, bathrooms, security, mental health services. So whoever owns the property, whether it be city municipality, county government or state government, unless they designate it as such and provide those certain resources, then no, it would not be legal to be there.”
A man was convicted of stealing a lower unit of an outboard engine after he failed to fix it for the victim recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “They dropped the lower unit off to a guy who said he could repair it. He was paid $1,700 in advance for the parts to do the repairs. He apparently never did the repairs, and sometime, apparently gave the lower unit away to somebody else. He does not know the person he gave it to, doesn’t have the person’s name, contact information, so he basically took it for services, took payment for services that were not rendered, and then gave the property which he did own away to somebody else. Once he gave it away, he committed a theft while he had it, initially, for this reason, when he gave property away, he did not own then he constituted a theft, because then he’s deprived the owner the right use or benefit of that property.”