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 powerboat races will take place this coming weekend in Marathon, so remember there could be traffic congestion.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “The powerboat race is always an exciting time for locals and visitors alike and our team’s coming down to race. The offshore powerboat race will be in Marathon this weekend. Folks will start coming in towards the end of the week. They’ll be launching recovering at the boat ramp on 33rd Street, which is a very popular busy boat ramp down by the school. But on Saturday and Sunday we want to remind our listeners that boat ramp and that route will be shut down to through traffic and only be used to launch and recover the powerboats. So a lot of our people do use that as a means to launch their recreational vessels. That will not be occurring this weekend. Then there’ll be course setup. They sign off the Seven Mile Bridge. There’ll be law enforcement services out there, coast guard, FWC, sheriff’s office patrol boats. There’ll be a bunch of course marshals trying to keep people outside the course. You’ll be able to anchor outside set areas to watch the boats as they go by. Should be a pretty exciting weekend. We hope a safe weekend. Last year we had some really bad weather where there was a couple of really bad crashes. So we hope this year it’s better weather for not only the racers but also the spectators.”
A 16 year old recently found herself in trouble for making a fake bomb and gun threat at Coral Shores High School.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We named this juvenile and we don’t generally name juveniles, but the magnitude of this type of stuff, making bomb threats and threats to kill people and shoot people, I think the listeners have a right to know. I think the other students, other children’s parents have a right to know who these kids are, decide if they want their kids to hang out with these kids or want to have these kids at their homes. It’s not to out them, but you can’t do this type of stuff and just hide behind being a juvenile. So this is an immature 16 year old, domestic related, ex boyfriend with a new girlfriend. She’s unhappy. So this girl contacted the Homeland Security HSI tip line and reported this potential act of violence at the school, bomb threat, going to blow the school up, going to kill people. HSI sent that tip to MCSO being our jurisdiction, and the tip had identified male and female as the suspects. Well, we got those two juveniles, we interviewed them. They deny any knowledge. The point is that they said they thought it was retaliatory. They thought it was a girl who was mad at them for having a relationship and both people independently identified her as someone we should talk to. So our investigation moved to this young lady where we were able to determine in fact she was the one that contacted HIS, made a false tip of threatening to blow up the school and shoot people. We obviously arrested her and made the decision to identify her name for the same reason we just talked about.”
A recent case that started with the Key West Police Department involved a MSCO deputy.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’re not going to tolerate stupid behavior from our citizens, visitors or my staff as well. Again, domestic related. So many cases revolve around domestics. The Key West Police did a good job to arrest one of our people for a domestic related matter where he was on a property and entered part of his body through a window. They charged him with burglary and criminal mischief. We’ve since suspended him without pay. My intent is to terminate employment. He’s got a predetermination hearing coming up. But in the term after he got arrested by the police, we did our own internal investigation. We checked our confidential databases to see if he used it to run anybody. We determined that he misused our systems. We have what’s called the FCIC, NCIC, DAVID, these are all confidential and state and national databases, we use for a variety of stuff. We’re able to track that he actually had used them multiple times that night. It was quasi stalking domestic matter, between his ex girlfriend and ex girlfriend’s new boyfriend. So we determined he’d misuse our systems for personal reasons and that is a crime. So we did charge them for misusing our systems, again, holding him accountable, sending a message to others who may want to use this system improperly and letting the citizens know that we’re not going to tolerate our people doing wrongdoing either. Unfortunately for him, he has been re arrested this time by MCSO for misusing our confidential databases.”
An 82 year old Bay Point man was arrested Tuesday after firing a handgun in his residence. A 38 caliber was fired into a door multiple times and it involved a 75 year old female victim.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “All three cases, we’ve talked about have domestic related matters with them. 82 year old male, live at Bay Point, he’s got a wife of many years, a 75 year old female. She left the house, was out late. He had concerns that maybe she was cheating on him. He was mad that she was out so late hadn’t come home. When she does come home, he’s very agitated. He has locked himself in the bedroom, she wants to get in the bedroom, he won’t let her in because he’s mad. She keeps trying to get the door open. To the point that he’s on the other side with a revolver, shoots multiple times through a door into a bathroom, not in her direction. But discharges the weapon in the house multiple times. We get the call, we get on scene. We determined that this was a domestic related matter, what the fight was over and also the fact that he just discharged this weapon into his home. So we did charge him with that crime. You just can’t be firing a weapon in the house because you’re mad at your spouse. Someone could get hurt or killed. Sad situations. But we see so much these days across the nation with domestic violence and the repercussions of this where people make poor decisions, they make decisions with emotion, not logic. If they would have been logically thinking, they wouldn’t do the things the majority of the time. But your emotions overpower your logical thinking and emotional thinking is almost always going to be wrong compared to what a logical decision would have been.”
A 20 year old Homestead Florida man robbed a 14 year old and punched the teen in the face multiple times and took $3,200 from the juvenile.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “These were casual acquaintances. This wasn’t just a random attack. The 20 year old and a 14 year old knew each other and at some point time had picked him up on was given him a ride in the car. While in the car an altercation over the money or jewelry took place where the 20 year old demanded the jewelry be handed over. The minor did not want to hand it over. So the 20 year old then punched him in the face and nose area, which convinced him then to turn to the jewelry over. He turned over the jewelry. When he got home was asked about the injuries. He lied first and he said he walked into a wall and then ultimately they didn’t believe him and ultimately came forward and confessed what really took place. Then the parents got involved and sheriff’s office got a contact. We interviewed multiple people, did the investigation determined that this was what’s called a strong arm robbery, no weapons involved, but through fear, intimidation or violence, and that they were known perpetrators and suspects and victims in this case, they were all known, which is not uncommon. But you deal with sketchy people because you know them casually, doesn’t change the fact that people can do stupid things pretty quickly. We always tell our listeners no matter who they are, stop and think before you speak, stop and think before you act. For every action there is reaction. The reaction here is, again, poor decision on this 20 year old male. He’s going to be held accountable for the battery on the minor, and stealing the minor stuff. For what? Nothing. It’s stupid, but at the end of the day we continue to hold people accountable, keep sending the message, and trying to ward off these type of things from occurring by presence and by letting people know that this is going to occur.”
A 41 year old Key Largo man tried to push, pull and grab deputies while they were attempting to escort him off a property.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a case of just Stupid 101. He shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing in the first place, checking doors and trying to rifle through stuff. This escalates when we’re out there. Even if you’re getting handcuffed, you’re not going to get away, we know who you are, you’re already going to jail. Trying to pull, kick, attacking the officer only makes things worse, you may being picked up on a misdemeanor charge majority of the time. But when you kick, punch, or take any act of violence against a police officer, that’s an automatic felony, it’s called battery on a law enforcement officer. You just enhance your situation from not too big a deal to a really big deal. We deal with this on a regular basis. People again, are emotionally thinking, not logically. A logical person would say, okay, don’t make the situation worse. Don’t keep digging your ditch. I got to deal with this minor issue. Don’t make it to a major issue. We keep talking about alcohol related and domestic related. Another case up that way, domestic related call, had a call from citizens about a male who was battering and throwing a female down to the ground. We get on scene, she’s not cooperative. This is a domestic violence situation. She’s not cooperating. We had three independent witnesses who said the same thing that they saw him manhandling or grabbing her, throwing her down to the ground. While she didn’t have any real signs of injuries, but her clothing was dirty and filthy, as if she’d been thrown on the ground, was rolling on the ground had dust, dirt, grass all over her. Same thing here. We went to make an arrest on him. He did the same thing as the guy we just talked about, started pulling, resisting and struggling and kicking at officers. None of this stuff makes any sense. So much we deal with is alcohol related, and or domestic related. Both are really serious, dangerous calls for police. Because under alcohol, people are not thinking rationally. They’re irrational thinking and their behavior is unpredictable and domestic violence, again, people are charged up with emotion, adrenaline, they’re not thinking clearly. Clearly they already have anger management issues, if we’re involved in domestic matters with them. So these are two really dangerous calls and some of the more prevalent calls we deal with.”