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 MCSO has a zero tolerance policy for graffiti.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I’m going to continue to try to combat graffiti. As you drive through the Keys, you’ll be hard pressed to find it. We are on it every day, and I don’t want to see that garbage, nor do our citizens. We have, over the years, made a bunch of arrests. People are investigated. These are minor cases, but we still put detectives on it, because we want to send a message and control this chaos with graffiti. So we did have a case on Big Pine where there was video of a car pulling up, a male getting out with a mask on, spray painting one of the bus stops. We saw the same logos down in the Key West area, and we had a vehicle, we were able to get the tag on the car, and we identified the owner of the car being a female who was a passenger in the car, and we confronted her, to talk to her about it, and she played stupid, said she didn’t know the guy. She picked him up hitchhiking, but yet he’s driving her car, and yet he feels comfortable to pull up, get out, put a ski mask on, spray paint right in front of her, spray paint the bus stop, and right by her passenger window, sees it, let him get back in the car. So obviously we believe this is probably a boyfriend, not just some stranger she picked up hitchhiking and letting her drive her car to commit crimes. So she did a good job playing stupid. But at the end of the day, she was there, her car was used. She allowed this to facilitate and we’re coming after her. We’re going to hold her accountable as a co conspirator to this criminal mischief and try to send a message to other people. If her boyfriend wants to commit these type of crimes, she shouldn’t be with him when it’s occurring, and she shouldn’t let her car be used to facilitate these type of crimes. So we did get a warrant for her arrest, and we notified her, we located her, and she turned herself in, and she’s got her booking page on my site, and she’s been made accountable, and I hope in the future, she thinks twice to allow people to use her car and be present while crimes take place. That’s unacceptable.”
MCSO is also protecting our natural resources.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “The number one complaint we handle is traffic related matters. It’s important part of our daily jobs. While we do traffic enforcement, sometimes we find other crimes. This is one of those cases. We stopped the vehicle for a traffic violation. Two people were in the car, a male, 33 year old driver and 30 year old female passenger. There was a cooler in the backseat of the car. We determined that there was fisheries involved. We contacted our friends at FWC as well, who responded out there. Ultimately, the cooler contained 12 severely undersized snapper. They could fit in a palm your hand, and one out of season lobster. So no one would cooperate. They wouldn’t just talk to us or cooperate or identify who was a perpetrator. So physically arrested in the driver on the charges, and we gave the passenger a notice to appear for the charges of environmental protection laws as well. So this is an ongoing matter, ongoing efforts to combat these type of cases where people are just attacking our environment. These are poachers, and we’re not going to tolerate it. So we do appreciate our friends at FWC, coming out and helping, assisting as well, and again, keep sending the message that we have to protect these resources for the current and future generations, or they will not exist. It’s people like this is why we’re getting seasons and bag limits and size limits on all those fish products.”
Two Miami men were arrested following a fight at a Key Largo fast food restaurant recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We got a call about just before midnight to the Wendy’s in Key Largo, about a disturbance in the drive through. The store was closed inside for patrons, but the drive through was still was still open. So a couple of people wanted to get food inside. Couldn’t get inside because it was closed, the restaurant area. So they tried to go through the drive through and order food on foot, and at some point in time, a car was also trying to come to the drive through to order food, an altercation took place between the pedestrians, which were a 20 and 18 year old male from a South Florida area who were intoxicated severely. When an argument with a motorist took place, the two young people picked up sticks, armed themselves with sticks, and then the disturbance continued on. By time we got there, they fled on foot. We found them a short time later, ultimately, we arrested them for the disturbance at the drive through here. It’s disorderly conduct, so just it’s alcohol influenced poor decisions from these two individuals, but we’re glad no one got hurt. We could de escalate it as fast we can and hold these two people accountable.”
A Marathon Florida man was yielding a knife after he tried to take a soda from a Tom Thumb store in Stock Island recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Stupid case. This is the Stock Island Tom Thumb. This is about 2am in the morning. A male comes inside, is a shoplifting, is taking a soda, taking a couple snacks, taking a few things. Then on the way out, they tried to stop him. He just ignored the clerk, went outside, the clerk followed him outside, tried to recover the stolen property. It turned into the suspect in this case, pulling out a knife, wielding a knife, yelling and threatening to kill the clerk. At some point in time, started chasing the clerk with the knife. We found him a short time later, walking, still had the knife, and subsequently he was arrested for armed robbery, being, in this case, the knife. People think armed robbery is a hand gun. It doesn’t have to be a firearm to be an armed robbery. It’s some type of weapon which can do bodily arm. In this case, a knife clearly can. So he was charged for armed robbery, for just trying to shoplift just a few dollars worth of stuff. So kind of a stupid decision for a couple dollars worth of food, you’re going to be in jail and potentially prison, depending on his past rap sheet, armed robbery is a serious charge. It’s going to hold a pretty serious bond when you pull a knife out and threaten to kill somebody, so he’s likely to be sitting in my jail a long time just because of a soda and a couple of snacks. So a terrible, poor decision, but these decisions are life altering.
A contractor was arrested in a traffic stop recently who was wanted on a litany of charges stemming from Grand Theft to contractor fraud recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is an Islamorada victim and this person from the Upper Keys who’s a suspect, while he says he’s running a impact resistant window business, we’re not convinced he was, it seems more of a fraud. There was multiple people that were a victim of fraud by this individual who would advertise for new windows and doors and come out, take measurements, do all the little stuff. He would then take a substantial deposit down, and then you never hear a see from him again. During this investigation, we found multiple victims. We found that no time did he ever apply for permits, no time did he ever order the supplies. Then once he got the money, he just ghosted the victims. They couldn’t get a hold of him, wouldn’t answer the phone, the voicemail was full. Wouldn’t return emails. Every which way they try to get a hold of this person, to no avail. So he’s just a scam artist, just ripping off people of large amounts of money, impact resistant windows is not cheap, and stealing people’s money and people lay waiting for this to occur, to get the windows in their homes for storm season or for insurance to be reduced to never happen. We’ve been looking for this guy a little while. Took a little time to find him, but we eventually did find him, and we arrested him on multiple larceny charges. I think we had, like, I think seven cases on this guy that we know of, and there’s always other cases where people have yet to come forward, or don’t know what to do. Sometimes when these arrests are made is when we see other victims come forth and saying, me too. So sad, sad case, but he was arrested and is going to be held accountable and we’re stopping these crimes from occurring. The crimes continue until we stop and arrest and hold people accountable, they’re likely to continue. So we have to cut the head off the snake.”
A Lansing, Michigan, man, 84 years old, was found floating in the water off Sombrero Boulevard on Friday.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is an open death investigation by MCSO, our Major Crime Unit. We were contacted about a deceased body floating. We responded, along with our partners and friends at Fish and Wildlife Commission, United States Coast Guard. Great partners came out with us as well, and we recovered the deceased individual. No signs of foul play at this time, 84 year old male from out of county, presumably, it looks like we believe he fell in the water and suddenly he drowned, but that’s got to be determined through the medical examiner. Make sure no other signs of foul play that exist that we didn’t know about. So this is under our investigation between the major crimes units, medical examiner, as I said. Always want to thank our partners of Coast Guard and FWC for being such good partners with us. It’s sad, but again, the good thing I believe, at this point in time, it doesn’t look like there’s anything nefarious. It just looks like a sad situation that we have to deal with.”
The Citizens Police Academies are up and running.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I think this is a week four coming up. So far, it’s going well. I’m hearing good reports. I’ve been to the opening of all three sessions, and I’ve continued to see our citizens who are in this class about the community in various meetings and good, positive reports. I keep telling people, next year, when the CPA comes up, people should consider it. It’s good, fun time for all very interesting, educational, good team building and partnership building, and we’re happy, proud about that part of our community policing efforts. I always appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk about MCSO and all the great stuff we’re doing and what’s happening in the world of law enforcement.”