When it comes to rough weather, Sheriff Rick Ramsay and his staff are ready

September 26 — With the upcoming fallout from Hurricane Ian, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department is ready to help. 

Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the upcoming storm. 

Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is nothing new for us, hurricanes down here in the Keys. We try to be hurricane prepared and the Sheriff’s Office is always ready. So we are ready to go, our teams are ready to go. We’ve got good action plans in place.” 

The storm will be monitored and tropical storm conditions are expected. High tides are also expected in the lower Keys. 

In addition to working on keeping the Keys safe during hurricane season, the Sheriff’s Department also investigates crime. 

Fentanyl has been a pretty big issue in the Keys recently. 

At a recent traffic stop at 7:30 p.m. a canine deputy discovered 6.1 grams of fentanyl in a vehicle, which is enough to kill thousands of people. 

Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is a really, really serious situation. How deadly that stuff is. We were able to arrest him, hold him accountable and get these deadly drugs off the street. We and every other law enforcement agency across the nation are seeing more and more fentanyl surfacing. These (are) all coming in from the open southwest border, coming across the Mexican border into the United States. Hopefully at one point in time our federal government does something to try to secure that border because the amount of drugs that are coming across into the United States and are killing our citizens is amazing.” 

About a day ago at the Tom Thumb Gas Station in Marathon, a woman prepaid for fuel, but a man was standing in front of the pump. She tried to waive him off, but he didn’t leave. She got aggravated, so she used her car to push him out of the way. 

Sheriff Ramsay said, “Now the guy, thank God, had no injuries, but use your car to batter somebody, the vehicle his considered a deadly weapon, it aggravates it to an aggravated battery, which is a felony charge.” 

Multiple witnesses as well as the victim explained what happened to officers. Videos were also reviewed, so the woman was charged with aggravated battery. 

Sheriff Ramsay reminded, “This is so unusual, but if something like this ever happens, the thing to do is just call the Sheriff’s Office. Always let us come deal with it. We’ll deal with these situations. That’s what our job is to try to mitigate, reduce liability and exposure, reduce potential injuries and batteries from occurring between people, but when you take matters into your own hands, bad things are generally likely to come out of it.” 

A week and a half ago, the Chief Flight Nurse for Trauma Star Unit was arrested for stealing and using narcotics owned by Monroe County Fire and Rescue. An internal investigation discovered another employee was aware this was occurring weeks earlier and didn’t report it. 

Sheriff Ramsay said, “When we got involved, his responsibly was to help aid and assist in the investigation, but what he did was impede, hinder and obstruct our investigation. He lied under oath, perjured himself. He destroyed physical evidence. When confronted with other people’s versions of his involvement, he lied. It’s a shame. He didn’t have to do this. He should have just cooperated. That would have been the right thing to do and he wound’t have been arrested, but during these investigations, we’re not going to allow people to obstruct and hinder an investigation.” 

The investigation will continue until everything is uncovered. 

Sheriff Ramsay said, “Our message to anybody else who we interview is you better come forward and tell us the truth. If you don’t, anybody who lies, falsifies, destroys evidence, obstructs this investigation will be placed under arrest.” 

A $5,000 check to the United Way of Collier and Keys was presented by the Sheriff’s Department in memory of Mike Forster. 

Sheriff Ramsay said, “I love talking about good stuff in the Sheriff’s Office. United Way is near and dear to my heart. I’ve been a United Way Board Member for about 20 years. It makes it easy to support something which is so good, does such good stuff for our community.” 

Additionally, three officers were promoted in the department due to some retirements and transfers. 

Sheriff Ramsay said, “So it’s an exciting day for them and an exciting day for Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and exciting day for our community.” 

A good samaritan recently came to the rescue of a Key deer that had gotten entangled in a mesh hammock. 

Sheriff Ramsay said, “It just goes to show a day in the life of a law enforcement officer is so wide spread and so diversified, you never know what call you’re going to. We do thank our friends from Gary’s Plumbing for contacting us, notifying us.” 

The deer had been there for a while — it was clearly dehydrated and incredibly stuck in the hammock. Sheriff’s deputies used knives and small machetes to cut the deer free — it took them about 20 minutes. 

Sheriff Ramsay said, “It’s definitely a feel-good story. These are endangered species and we hate to see any animal suffer. If someone wouldn’t have found him, he would have suffered and starved and difficult death. So we’re glad we got there to be part of something good. We thank our citizens for calling us, working with us.”