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.
Traffic was a little snarled during the Easter holiday
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We had a lot of crashes unfortunately over the weekend. So Trauma Star, our air medical helicopter remained super busy. They just had back to back flights. They flew a lot yesterday. Then beginning of the weekend, we had a bad crash at the 38 mile marker, a head on car crash. We had three critical patients, three trauma alerts, so we had to bring in both ships. We brought in Trauma Star North and Trauma Star South, picked up three trauma patients and flew them off to Miami. We’re there to help aid and assist, whether it be on land, sea or air, and again, our Trauma Star, our air medical program continues to be just so, so busy saving lives each and every day.”
The Seven Mile Bridge run is coming up on the 13th of April. The bridge will be closed, so people need to plan ahead.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We want to warn our people way ahead of time, the importance of this date to plan. We always have people that were heading to Miami for a meeting, for business, for a flight, for a medical that gets stuck in the roadblock and can’t get through and miss their appointments or flights. So we remind everybody ahead, yes, April 13 is the Seven Mile Bridge run. There’ll be a period of time in the morning for about a two hour window, that all traffic will be stopped north and south. No cars will be able to move. So you need to be past that area no later than 6am. or you’re going to be sitting in traffic. So just plan ahead. Think about it. If you don’t need to travel, don’t travel. If you can change your date, change your date. If you’ve got to get somewhere, leave early and just have a plan so you’re not inconvenienced.”
Recently a gentleman stole a rental vehicle and was located in the Upper Keys, but did not go quietly.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This guy came and rented a car for one day only and never showed back up. He called and said he was going to up the days he wanted to rent the car, but never did and never paid for it. This went on for almost three months that he never showed and never called and was still using this vehicle that he only paid for one day. The rental car company called us and reported it stolen as they could not get a hold of him and he refused contact. So we reported the car as stolen. At some point time later they’re able to GPS track the car to a location in the Upper Keys parking lot. We had a description, tag information. We went to that location, found the car, found the person who rented it. The suspect was inside the car behind the wheel. As we came up he locked the car, was non compliant, would not unlock the car, not obey commands, would not get out of the car. This went on for a long period of time. At some point in time, the door got unlocked just for a second, enough time for us to open the door. Once we had the door open, we gave him commands again, where he continued to be combative, argumentative, refused commands. At this point in time we had no choice but to use a taser to seek compliance. So we deployed a taser, which then helped us to get full compliance, get him handcuffed and subsequently arrest him for grand theft auto and resisting charges. So it seems pretty clear his intent was just to rent the car for one day only, and not return it and continue to drive it. He didn’t think that he’d be held accountable. But he was wrong. He’s in my jail where he needs to be.”
A 16 year old Key Largo juvenile male brandished a handgun, robbed people and took $700.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This individual knows the victims. They were friends at one point in time apparently, he’d reached out for the individuals and told them to meet him at Friendship Park, which is up there by US 1 Hibiscus Park. So the three boys went to meet the other kids who was their friend. Once they showed up, the 16 year old male, pulled out a handgun, pointed it at all three and robbed them of $700 and made threats to them. They left. We were notified shortly later on. We interviewed all three juvenile witness slash victims in this case and came to the conclusion that the crime had taken place. We did see text messages where they were backing the story that he had said to meet them there. We had probable cause, we got a warrant for his arrest for the armed robbery. We did execute the warrant. We did arrest him, a 16 year old male from the Upper Keys for armed robbery. This is very very disturbing, very concerning. This individual goes to high school in the Upper Keys, had access to a gun, used it to rob people who were his friends and always brings that question he has or would he bring that gun to school, too? For gun safety, it is so so important for us all to be aware of this picture, but the bigger picture. So we did arrest him. We are going to hold him accountable. We’re going to continue to send that strong message that we’re not going to allow crime, especially violent crimes to take place without people being held accountable.”
Another gun case came from a 25-year-old male from Homestead who was attempting to sell marijuana.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “It was a difficult case and continues to show the dangers of being a police officer, the risks we deal with every day. This individual was trying to sell a felony marijuana. In the course of trying to sell it he’s armed with a nine millimeter weapon. He’s from Miami Dade County, coming down into our Keys armed with a weapon to sell drugs. But as we always do, we hold people accountable. We’ve arrested him. We got the drugs off the streets, got the gun off the streets, and we got the suspect off the streets sending a message to him and other drug dealers, this is not the place to come and commit a crime, to sell drugs or to have a weapon on board. You have a weapon, you’re going to have enhanced penalties, additional charges. Our state attorney is pretty aggressive when it comes to people who are armed drug dealers.”
A 24 year old Stuart, Florida man was arrested for trafficking fentanyl recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This continues to be a trend. These are traffic stop related. We keep talking about the importance of my officers being vigilant on traffic enforcement and traffic stop, for a lot of reasons, traffic safety, but with other crimes that derive out of it. In this case here we’ve talked about in the past, my officers continue to try to focus on additional crimes that may arise. We did in this case here have a trafficking level fentanyl which came out of this car and this person. So fentanyl is the most deadly thing right now in our nation. I think they said last year 112,000 US citizens died from fentanyl overdoses. Then the numbers of people who have overdosed but yet were able to be brought back through medical are countless, but the adverse impact and financial impact on citizens, taxpayers is immense. We continue to deal with this fentanyl, which just to touch it can kill my officers. So it’s such a heightened sense of concern when we’re out with these cars, with these drug dealers, with these drugs. We have to hold these people accountable, get this crap off the street and put these people who are killing people in jail where they need to be. As we’ve done in the past, if someone sells drugs, and someone dies as a result, and we can track it back, we’re going to arrest them for murder charges as we’ve done half a dozen times this past year. So we are taking harder stances than most agencies I think when it comes to the war on drugs.”
Illegal immigration is another issue that the sheriff’s office takes seriously.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’ve got ready action plans in place for mass migration. We are monitoring this situation, there’s a lot of concern about potential mass exodus out of Haiti, and the concerns about a lot of those people are going to be potentially criminals that were let out in prison, gang members, really violent criminals. But what the governor of Florida and the sheriff’s office in Monroe is doing is we’re sending a message and we hope it’s the same message being received that don’t bother coming because you’re not going to make it. There’s a picket fence of marine vessels out there to stop you from leaving Haiti and if you get past it, there’s air assets from the Florida Air National Guard patrolling every day. You’re going to get intercepted, and you’re going back. If by some miracle you make it the land, there’s a full court of land presence, which is going to stop you, going to keep you from getting into our country. We’re going to work closely with our state, local and federal partners, to protect this community to keep it safe and secure. But all of us together, are trying to send the same message to the migrants who want to come here via water is that you’re not going to make it. Don’t bother wasting your time, risking your life and safety because the outcome is going to be the same. You’re not going to make it. You’re going to go back to the country where you left from. So the message is really important. If they think it’s open and no one’s here watching, they will come over in droves.”
The citizen police academy is coming up.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Our classes are full for this year. We do it every year. Our listeners who haven’t gone should go through it. We do it in three parts of the county, north, central, south, so everyone has availability to go. The first class starts in Lower Keys on Tuesday night. The Middle Keys class starts on Wednesday. The Upper Keys class starts on Thursday. It’s five weeks, one day a week, four hours a night from six to 10. You get full, hands on with the sheriff’s office. A lot of fun stuff, action, adrenaline, excitement. You learn how diversified this agency is, how complex this office is, how much we really do. Most people think sheriff’s office, they think tickets and doughnuts. But we say we’re a full agency who does everything from patrol, investigations, corrections, airports, court securities, civils, 911 dispatch numbers, Trauma Air Star medical programs, community policing outreaches. We do so much people are shocked to see what we do and they wind up saying, I didn’t know you all did that. But you meet friends. We meet the community, they meet us. We build everlasting relations which are critical for partnerships between police and citizens, working together as one team, one group to combat crime, to keep our community safe and secure and know and understand the needs of our citizens.”