Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
This Saturday will be the Seven Mile Bridge run, so if you need to get north, get on the bridge BEFORE 6 a.m.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is an all hands on deck event. We take a lot of pride in keeping it safe and keeping on the schedule. The hard shut down is at 6am and then opening up by nine o’clock no matter what. So we try to keep warning our listeners get through there before six if you have to go to Miami or somewhere else, because at 6:01, you’ll be stopped no matter what, even if you’re the last car and saying, hey, the car in front of me, just went, what’s the difference? We’ve got to draw the line at six o’clock no matter what. So we’re going to have plenty of manpower to make sure we’re safe for the bridge, to put out our barriers to make sure no cars can get on the bridge, to make sure we’re helping pedestrians cross and get the busses out on the highway, to get them down to the staging points. There’s a lot of work that goes involved in this, parking, pedestrians, runners, security escorts, clearing the bridge, making sure there’s no stragglers, no cars broken down, no one who’s walked on the bridge that wants to stay in the bridge, take pictures when people run by, we’ve got to clear off. Sometimes people try to ride a bike and then get halfway, just stop and watch the race. We’ve got to try to get them off. We got to give ourselves some extra time for people who want to argue and don’t want to leave and say, you can’t make me leave, which turns into going to jail. But we’ve had a few people that want to get on the bridge and be in the route and just aren’t part of the race, aren’t part of the teams, and are not a runner, so there’s a lot to make sure a whole seven mile stretch there’s nothing which is going to impede the race for racers.”
An e-bike DUI arrest happened recently. A 53 year old Key West man was arrested on April 1, for riding an E bike while intoxicated after he got into a crash.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We keep talking about E bikes, and there’s so many that are popping up, and they’re more and more involved in crashes or other related stuff, pursuits, different stuff. But this was an intoxicated male, and you can be charged with the same DUI charge on an E bike as if you were operating a motor vehicle, it will affect your driver’s license, your driving privileges, and has the same legal ramifications as if you’re operating a car. So about 10:33pm up around College Road and US 1, the E bike crashed into a tricycle type vehicle. We were called out there. We responded. We pretty quickly determined the male was the at fault vehicle and was intoxicated. Roadside sobriety tests were done. He did not do well on those. Subsequently, he was arrested. He was found to be in possession of marijuana, drug paraphernalia. He had drugs on his person that were brought into the correctional facility. When you do that, you are then charged with an additional crime for introduction of contraband into a correctional facility. So his day was a shot, and he spent the holiday weekend at the Rick Ramsay Bed and Breakfast. So you live and learn.”
Last week, a 79 year old Hollywood Florida motorist reached nearly 100 miles per hour on US 1.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Not the smartest guy. As you get a little older in life, you’re supposed to get smarter, but he hasn’t gotten the message, apparently. So he’s speeding, reckless driving, passing in no passing zones, going through the construction zones, which are always reduced and have higher visibility for law enforcement issues. We tried to stop him around the 87 mile marker, to no avail. He continued with speeds up to 100 miles an hour, fleeing from officers southbound. And this went on to about the 52.5 mile marker before we were able to finally get him to yield. So we had about a 25 mile long, high speed pursuit with this 79 year old male from Hollywood, Florida. So we’re lucky no one got killed or seriously hurt. Eventually we were able to get him under arrest, tow his car, hold him accountable, and he, as well, spent some time in my B&B.”
Also last week, a person from Naples was arrested trying to steal an 18 pack of beer. He also struck the convenience store clerk in the face who was attempting to stop him from stealing the beer.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a 41 year old male from Naples, Florida, and not the smartest guy, goes into the Tom Thumb in Islamorada at the 88.5 mile marker. He’s back there by the beer area. Most of those areas are smaller stores that have mirrors. You can see what’s going on. The clerk sees him trying to shove an 18 pack of beer into a backpack. The clerk confronts him and tries to get him to relinquish the beer he just stole, to no avail. It turns into a physical altercation when the suspect punches the clerk in the face. We get called. We do find him outside the establishment with the beer. He’s identified as the suspect who threw the punch. Ultimately, he was arrested for the theft and battery and then resisting charges as he resisted the officers outside who were giving him lawful commands. So he just made the situation worse, from stealing to battering to resisting. So at some point you’ve got to know when to hold them, when to fold them, and here’s a guy who probably shouldn’t be playing cards.”
The Citizens Police Academy is coming up.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “It’s one of our highlights, of our community involvement with our citizens. They love it. I’ve never had someone go through it that did not love it. We make it a first hand experience. We make it fun, action, adrenaline, excitement. You meet some really good people in the class and meet some really good officers. Get a better understanding of the working of the sheriff’s office. How much we do. We bring out all the equipment, all the special operators. You get a chance to role play. We do simulations. We do control traffic stops, controlled building searches. We make people’s adrenaline get pumping. We make them have to be in situations, make split second decisions and then explain why they did it. Sometimes their actions are correct. A lot of the time they’re not. And we say you knew you were in a controlled situation where you weren’t going to be hurt. Imagine if you’re out there by yourself in the middle of nighttime, three o’clock in the morning, it’s just you. You have to make that life or death decision and be held accountable for it. And there, when you’re in the streets as a police officer, you don’t know if you’re going to go home. Here in this class, you know you’re going home. And we have just a really, really good experience. And it’s in three parts of the county, Tuesday nights, we do in Lower Keys. Wednesday night will be in the Middle Keys. Thursday night will be the Upper Keys. So we have to put this on three nights a week so all parts of the county can get accessibility to the class. And it goes for five weeks, one night a week, you’re expected to show up. There’s a graduation at the end. We actually have a graduation ceremony. We have a class speaker. Everyone gets a graduation certificate. We make this a really, really fun event. There’s food, drinks at the events every night in all three locations, as we put them on. We just make it easy to go, easy to enjoy, a lot of fun out of it, and a lot of education. And we make lifelong, lasting memories, lifelong, lasting friends in our community. As we continue to build a relationship between the sheriff’s office and our citizens, we always talk about how important it is to have the internal and the external relationships. They don’t happen by themselves. They happen by interaction with our general public, getting to know them, understand their needs, wants, concerns, desires, what issues they have, having them have your contacts so they can call you if they see something or some problem, and us knowing people that we can call when you help with something ourselves. It’s a communication cooperation, partnership, teamwork, type of event.”