Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
Labor Day weekend will see heavier traffic and patience will be needed.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “Labor Day is the end of the summer, the big push as we know, the last weekend for a lot of activities to occur. So we will see a lot of traffic, a lot of boats, a lot of Miami weekend traffic coming down. Always a time to plan ahead and not be impatient. Try to stay off the roads if you can. But there is a lot of boat activities, so stay away from all those crazy boaters, jet skis, chaos going on the water. Just try to enjoy the weekend and de-stress. Don’t let the weekend turn you into a stressful situation. But it’s hard to believe summer’s almost over. Kids are back in school. Last week school was open. Things went really smooth during our school week, no issues. We had a lot of officers out at the school behind busses, bus stops, speed zones, school zones, trying to make sure our kids are safe. No issues with that last week. So we’re glad to report that the start of school went off nice and smooth. But the summer went by so fast. It’s hard to believe.”
A juvenile from Key Largo was arrested last week after his mother found a nine millimeter handgun in his backpack. This individual has been in trouble with the law before.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We hate to see these young people making poor decisions which could destroy their lives or somebody else’s. This young man and a couple other young men from that area last year were involved in a situation with a gun at the park in Key Largo, where actually one juvenile discharged their weapon at another juvenile. This young man was part of that group, and his mother, which I give her a lot of credit, was going through his backpack, which I think parents should do. You should know what’s going on, phone, backpack, rooms, what she did, she came across a loaded nine millimeter, semi automatic handgun with the serial number which had been removed. She notified authorities, which we appreciate, took the gun into possession. We ultimately arrested this child for possession of firearm under 18. Later on, we found Facebook posts where he had made posts to his ex girlfriend’s new boyfriend threatening his life, was going to kill him, so the text message emails alluded to rest in peace and going to shoot him and kill him. So the mother may have warded off a murder. May have warded off her son being incarcerated the rest of his life, but it’s a dangerous, tricky time with juveniles and guns. We have to be vigilant. Parents have to be part of the solution. In this case we have to get the courts and DJJ involved. We have to have court involvement. We’re going to have to do everything we can to try to save this young man from ruining his life or somebody else’s. So he was expelled from the school, as well as two other juveniles that are part of his group that they’re hanging out with. There’s a small group of kids up there who, last year and this year have been bullies, beating kids up at school, threatening other kids, in this case, having a weapon. I give our superintendent a lot of credit, it’s not an easy thing to expel kids from school, but three kids have been expelled from the system up there, which I’m glad to say, we need to send a message to them and others that this action, this type of behavior will not be tolerated and there are repercussions for your actions. But again, the mother was the key critical part here, to do the right thing, as much as her son’s going to be mad at her, parents can’t be there trying to hide, protect kids from crimes they are committing or about to commit. They have to be there to try to hold their kids accountable and prevent poor decisions from destroying these kids’ lives. Now, I always tell you, your listeners, we don’t generally name juveniles involved in crimes, but violent crimes, guns involved weapons, I named these kids, not to try to out them, but because I always tell you and your listeners, I think the parents have a right to know who these bad kids are, so they can determine whether their kids can hang out with these kids or not, whether these kids are welcome at their house or not, whether their daughter can date one of these kids or not. Most of the time, I think the parents, after being notified of this type of action, would not let their kids associate with these other kids, because these other kids are only going to try to get these younger kids or other kids involved, and it’s peer pressure to make poor decisions. So again, we did name this 15 year old Key Largo young man, Juan Pablo Villegas, from Key Largo, and we will continue to name kids who are a direct threat to the other kids and our community’s well being. He is a clear and present danger to the other juveniles and our community, and we have to make sure people are aware. So I get a lot of feedback, a lot of pushback from people saying, you’re destroying his life by naming him. I say no, he’s destroying his life by his own actions and I have to warn other people of this danger. So it’s not meant to be mean, but the betterment of the majority versus the individual.”
The partnership between the MCSO and the Monroe County School District will continue with the new superintendent.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “He’s a sharp guy. We met in my office a week and a half ago, had a really good conversation, talked about communication, cooperation, partnership, teamwork. So I really feel good about him coming on board. Again, this gun in this backpack, it was two days before school was going to start, that gun was headed to school in this kid’s backpack. The new superintendent is a good man, I think he’s going to work out.”
A man from Hollywood, Florida, was arrested for stealing an American flag from a neighboring property after a dispute over the volume of music.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is crazy, but this is an alcohol influence decision. This was a Broward County firefighter down on vacation, on a rental unit with family and friends, and instead of enjoying the weekend, he drank too much. He did not like the loud music across the street. At least, he thought it was too loud, but it was the middle of daytime, so it wasn’t violating any law, rules or regulations. But he jumped in the water, swam across, got on the other person’s property, and confronted the owner about the loud music, alleged loud music, the owner was compliant. Said, I’m sorry. Turned it down. The guy swam back across the street. Later on, I’m not even convinced it was based on loud music the second time. He jumped in the water, swam across, got to the person’s flag pole, pulled down the flag, took the flag, jumped back in, swam back across the canal. All this was on video. The homeowner had a video system at the house, so it’s all captured on video. So I’m not even convinced it was really a case of excessive loud noise versus more excessive drinking, with poor decisions as a result. So it’s stupid. He’s got a career, a firefighter in Broward, been a firefighter there a pretty long time, I think. You’re down here on vacation, you’ve got to do dumbass stuff. As a result, he’s going to be coming back down to answer the charge and lesson learned. If you can’t hold your alcohol, don’t drink. Know your limitations.”
A 35 year old Fort Lauderdale woman was arrested for reckless driving and fleeing and eluding.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “This is another stupid story. This pursuit went for about seven miles between the 32 and the 25 mile marker, a reckless operation due to alcohol, passing on the shoulder, not maintaining a single lane, speeding at 80 miles an hour. My officers try to stop this car. It initially stopped at the traffic light for a second. Officer gets out, approaches the car, as they’re approaching, the car takes off. Pursuit is involved. We called in the other units, so we got the pursuit going on this point in time, we wind up using our Stinger spike system. We wind up spiking the car. We have a successful spike, which we always talk about, are designed to stop pursuits, or at least slow them down, to mitigate and reduce the potential for loss of life or injury. So it worked like it was supposed to. After a seven mile pursuit spiking, we did get the vehicle stopped. We did identify this female in the car. Subsequently, she was intoxicated. She did get arrested and went to jail on multiple charges. That’s a 5,000 pound missile being driven down the road 80 miles an hour by an impaired driver, which is likely to hurt or kill somebody or herself. We’ve got to get these drunk drivers off the road to keep our roads safe and secure. But it continues to be a difficult, challenging job the men and women have in law enforcement, dealing with pursuits and spiking cars and drunks and a lot of stress going on at one time. So good job. Hats off to my team. But again, we hate to have to be in these situations in the first place.”
Recently, 25 kilograms of suspected cocaine washed up near Islamorada.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’re always going to have drugs, I think, coming into the shores of the Keys. But that’s part of the mystery of the Keys, but this was a good Samaritan, a good boat captain, who did find this 25 kilos. That’s 55 pounds of pure, uncut cocaine, a bale of cocaine up around the Square Grouper Marina in Islamorada. In really good condition, nice and dry, had a red background with a captain ship wheel on the front. So the government would use this as markings to try to determine what cartel this came from, what region, how long has it been at sea? If it coordinates with any intelligence they may have about air drop, boat drops, importations. But a lot of times, drugs get lost at sea, at nighttime, when they’re being transferred from a vessel to another vessel, or maybe at nighttime, a boat has cocaine is trying to come to the US, and then they hear or see or catch on the radar a boat coming up behind them, they get concerned, scared of maybe law enforcement, so they purge, jettison the load in case it’s law enforcement. There’s a lot of reasons why these drugs wind up in the water, but it’s every week that we’ve got either cocaine, marijuana, either a kilo or a bail or whatever, coming up and we see how much people turn in. The bigger question is, how much is out there that does not get turned in? That we will never know, but there’s plenty of people that pick this stuff up and bring it to shore. We know that was the nexus for that double murder in Key Largo years ago, was over cocaine found floating at sea. We talked about the Feds indicting 27 people in Marathon, that was allegedly off a large amount of cocaine found floating that was brought in, then it was a large conspiracy to get it divvied up and sell it and get it out on the streets by local people who got greedy for money, and so a lot of times this stuff is being picked up, is being brought in, is being sold or divvied out in the community or people have committed crimes as result for financial greed reasons.”
Another case came out of Crane Point Hammock recently.
Sheriff Ramsay explained, “A Crane Point Hammock employee comes out, and he finds a 46 year old male from Key West who has just put up a F Putin sign, and he’s got a golf club in his hand. The employee is being nice, but tells the person, sir, you can’t put that sign here. This is non political. This is a beautiful refuge, and this is not the place. Please take your sign down. The guy gets enraged, gets angry, is yelling and screaming, starts threatening the Crane Point Hammock employee, takes the golf club, puts it over his shoulder like a baseball bat, and is threatening to crash this guy’s skull in with the golf club. The employee obviously gets scared, takes some steps back, creates distance. Called 911. We respond quickly. We’re there in less than two minutes. By time we get there, the guy is gone. We set up an outer perimeter. We locate him across the street, he still has the golf club in hand. He’s positively identified as the suspect in this case, we do arrest him subsequently for the aggravated assault with this golf club. But unusual, but a 46 year old male from Key West trying to put up a F Putin sign inside Crane Point Hammock in Marathon.”
Trauma Star will be getting a new airship this Thursday.
Sheriff Ramsay said, “We’ve got three new Trauma Star helicopters that have been built, and have been delayed getting them, unfortunately, but the first one will arrive this Thursday, late afternoon, the second one the following week, and the third one, believed to be the following week after that. So we finally got through the FAA hoops of trying to get all the paperwork done. It was a paperwork issue at FAA and trying to get what’s called an STC for the new med interior. It’s a brand new eighth generation interior which has never been used. FAA has to prove that to make sure it doesn’t have any air worthiness to the ship. So that was a delay taking some time, unfortunately, but we’re excited. The aircraft we have were aging and need to be replaced. And we know this program is probably the golden program for the Board of County Commission. This program saved lives every day. We’re just glad it’s here. Every week people are flown out. We had that jet ski crash last week. We had to fly one of those patients out from that jet ski crash. It’s every week. We had that young lady during mini season that got hit by a family boat with a propeller strike. We had to air evac her out to try to save her and her leg. It’s every week we’re saving people from car crashes, heart attacks, stroke alerts, boat crashes, Jet Ski crashes, inter facility from advanced life support needs in Miami. So it’s a lot of program to operate, but it’s so needed because of our geographic location, but we are excited to get the new ships and finally, start trying to get them integrated into service.”