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 aqueduct authority project has been tabled for now, so traffic should flow a little better.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “It’s difficult. We have to have projects done. We have to do construction. We have to have a new water pipe in there, but we’ve got to find a way to somehow coexist with traffic, business, economies and construction projects, and this one here just did not meet the mark. It was coming to the point that it was affecting public safety because we could not move police, fire, rescue, ambulance vehicles, even with lights and sirens. So we couldn’t provide life saving services, which has to be the number one priority for sure. Then we saw potential businesses that could not operate. We’re talking about people could lose their businesses, livelihoods, jobs, employments, kids couldn’t get to and from school. We saw kids waiting an hour, hour and a half for the bus even to show up at the school to pick them up, let alone drive them home. Parents were obviously freaked out. The parents couldn’t get kids to and from daycare. We have to go back and they have to reevaluate the Florida Department of Transportation, the aqueduct authority, the contractor, they need to go back. They’ve got to it better. So, we’ll see what happens.”
Chuck Thomas, a well-known broadcaster in our community passed away on Friday.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “I’ll miss Chuck. I’ve known him, it’s been 30 something years and been a good friend, good partner to law enforcement, and every week at the radio station, him and Joe, and before that, him and Bill. It’s going to be a huge loss for our community. He was just so solid, but we always have a memory and we remember the good times we had with him together, for sure.”
There were a number of awards for Officers of the Year for 2024 on Friday.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “What a great time to get together and acknowledge the Officers of the Year from the law enforcement, corrections, reserve and the civilian aspect of it. So we had a chance to talk about four amazing people, what they’ve done, why they were chosen by their peers to be the number one person for those jobs. It was pretty exciting to see the officers out there and their families and friends and how excited they are, and that’s a big thing, named as Officer of the Year, and it was really exciting. I’m so happy to be there and be part of this great stuff. Friday was a really busy day for us at the ceremony, besides that, and we had a retirement, long term Colonel Lou Caputo, who was my second in command, retired on Friday. So we had a big lunch and retirement ceremony for him at the same time. Then we had to promote up a new operational commander to take his role. So we moved up Lieutenant Colonel Chad Scibila to be the full colonel, who is now Colonel Scibila, who is the Under Sheriff for the sheriff’s office, my operational commander, right hand person. So that’s a big change for command staff, leadership in MCSO, what a good day for all. Between retirements promotion officer of the year and then we still remember the Dave Cormier Award, which is the officer of the year award is named after, an officer who was killed in a line of duty in 1989 while responded to a call for service. His family travels down to the Keys every year to be here, to represent the family and to talk about David and just make sure his memory continues to exist and go on in MCSO in this community, as new people come in, don’t know David Cormier, they’re educated every year by the family and by the sheriff’s office about who he was and what happened and the difficulties and challenges and dangers of being in law enforcement.”
The original Marathon Seafood Festival will be held this weekend.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is the 29th year. This, as always, will be a big event, with food, entertainment, music, just so much going on. It’s one of the biggest things occurring here in the county, for sure, and we’re going to be ready as always. But this is a difficult area for parking, pedestrians crossing the road. Our people will see a large tent set up in the middle of the road, and we’ll have a strategic crossing point for our citizens where we’re going to be manning it with multiple officers to do manual traffic control. So when you’re walking to the point across, we want you to walk to the tent. Don’t just cross wherever you park. It’s dangerous. It just causes the backlogs of traffic. So we want people to cross in one central location, and then we’ll safely cross people in packs and groups at a time. So you’ll see it right by the entrance to the park is where we’ll be set up there. But this is a challenging event to make sure we’re keeping traffic flowing in north and south, to dealing with parking, pedestrians crossing. So that’s the external outer perimeter. But that there is the inner perimeter. We have to deal with the internal part, where we have team members inside, uniform officers for visibility, presence and response should we need to get there for any type of altercation. It’s a very safe event overall, but not uncommon later in the day with excessive drinking to have alcohol related matters we have to deal with at the event. But just a great event. It should be a beautiful weekend, just so many great vendors out there, so much great music throughout the two days, great food. Get a chance to see a lot of people we haven’t seen for a while, friends and classmates. I’ll be out there myself, obviously, and spending time out there and enjoying just a super event. So we’re going to be there again to make sure it’s safe and secure for everybody, internal and external.”
An MSCO sergeant was struck in the face with a metal pipe with a nail attached to it while attempting to put a suspect into custody recently.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is one of the things we talk about all the time. You never know when a routine, basic suspicious person call goes from a low priority, to you’re fighting for your life as they’re trying to grab your weapon from your holster and attack you. This officer is around the Card Sound Road area close to the Ocean Reef area, we get a call about a suspicious person who has opened the fire hydrant and also is placing boulders in the middle of the road, so obviously very concerned for public safety in the motorist aspect of it. We encounter this 58 year old male, and the sergeant’s on scene and this person immediately gets aggressive and violent, immediately pulls out a pocket knife and is brandishing a knife at the officer. The officer tries to tase them. Taser just is not as effective as we hope. At some point in time during their altercation, there is a struggle. The suspect pulls out a steel stake, a large stake, about a two foot long, steel stake, like we use for a big, huge tent, and the end has a nail. It’s a rusty nail, rusty stake, and strikes the officer in the face, and then is grabbing for and trying to get his gun out of his holster. So this officer is truly fighting for his life on the side of the road. We’re thankful there was another officer relatively close, got on scene and jumped into the melee, and that person was also struck, and that other officer, also had his gun attempt to be taken from his duty holster. So these two are fighting with a really violent person. We’ll see what happens with toxicology. But high on drugs, alcohol, I don’t know, but acting very irrational, and ultimately they were able to get him handcuffed and secured. Then the officer had to go to the hospital here locally and later on had to be transferred to Kendall Regional with facial injuries and eye injuries. So, a really difficult situation. Suspect was taken to hospital. We had some injuries on him, obviously from the altercation. He stayed in overnight before he was released to patrol services and transported to the main jail down in Key West, where he still sits on a quarter million dollar bond. So the officer is still out of work. I’ve got to call him today, check on him, but it continues, just to beat the drum of how difficult and challenging this job is, how things can turn haywire so fast, and send a message of why we have to be so supportive of our law enforcement community. No matter what you hear or see anywhere else in America, it doesn’t matter. It’s what happening here in our community, and how this police department, sheriff’s office, interacts with this community and the need for the support going both ways, from us to the community, community to us to be efficient, effective and honor, remember the thankless hours that people put out there risking their lives and safety to make sure all of us can sleep safe and secure at night. Make sure this community remains one of the safest place ever to live, work and play. We talk about the crime being down this year by 13%, our officers continue to work hard to make sure this community is so safe and fight the battle of good versus evil, which this is what occurred that night out in the middle of nowhere.”
A person from Key Largo was arrested last Wednesday for stealing a piece of construction equipment valued at approximately $8,000.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a piece of garbage neighbor. Every neighborhood’s got one person. This is that one person that I think the neighborhood just hates, is trash. It is a construction site next to his house, and he likes to in the middle of the daytime, go over there and steal stuff off the construction site. Some smaller stuff, like grease gun, some other stuff, but also about a 500 pound, really expensive auger bit, two auger holes in the ground. Well, it’s on a weekend. No one’s there. He decides he’s going to steal it. So he goes over with some tools to take it apart from the machine, well you can’t lift it or roll it. It’s too big. So he comes over with a side by side Can-Am, hooks a rope up to it to the back of the Can-Am, ties it to the auger bit, and then just drags it from the construction site across the road and then undoes it and then pushes it in the brush area to hide it. We get a call out there, and you can see the scraped gouge marks in the middle of the road. We’re canvassing the neighborhood. We’re looking for surveillance cameras. We actually go to the suspect’s residence, not knowing at the time, he’s the suspect, but we know he’s got a ring doorbell camera, which is kind of facing the way we want to see. We talked to him about the ring door camera, and the guy is just really an ass, just a jerk, and tells us basically, get lost. So most of the neighbors were cooperative, but this is the one camera we needed, so he forced us to have to get subpoenas, and to subpoena the video from the provider. So it takes us a lot of time and effort to do this, and we get it, and every time a car goes by, the ring doorbell captures that image. So we have to go through just literally thousands of video door rings, takes hours and hours and hours before we can find the one that shows, wow. Okay, we captured the crime, and who committed the crime is the guy who’s got the ring doorbell camera who wouldn’t give it to us, so we see him clear as day stealing this item. So we have not recovered the items, because it’s been such a long delay. By the time we’ve got a warrant to get his arrest, the item was gone. We did seize his Can-Am. It was used in the commission of a crime. He used the motor vehicle, the Can-Am to steal the auger bit. So we seized his Can-Am. We did arrest him for grand theft, some other charges. He’s going to be held accountable, and he’s going to ultimately have to pay for that auger bit. It’s about $8,000 to $10,000 auger bit, they say, so, good job by my detectives being vigilant, dealing with a crap head suspect, crap head neighbor and, just get some closure for the victim, some accountability, and try to deter this person from doing this type of stuff to someone else in the future.”
A snorkeling accident last week near Sombrero Key lighthouse, off Marathon did result in a death.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “A beautiful day at Sombrero lighthouse, a person came back to the boat not feeling well, got back on the boat, was conscious. Soon thereafter passed out, became unconscious. We think he gulped a bunch of water in, started to have foam coming out his mouth. They put him on his side to try to help him to potentially throw up. Your body and on its own, will try to throw up if you have the situation. So we know he gulped a bunch of water, basically a salt water drowning situation, and then became non responsive. They started doing CPR. Try to rush them in. Police, fire rescue services all waiting, tried to render aid. At the end of the day he succumbed to what appears to be a salt water drowning type incident, just panicking and out there and you gulp water, and get more panicked and things went downhill pretty fast. So really sad for any loss of life, and down here on vacation, and this is what happens unfortunately, at times, if people haven’t been on the water in a long time, or maybe they never really snorkeled, or maybe they’re not in good physical shape, or maybe it’s not the best day to go out, but they decide to go out anyway. It’s clearly a sad day, for sure, for the victim and then the families and friends.”