*PLEASE READ*

Now that yet another Monroe Deputy has lost their life in a traffic crash, will the Sheriff and his command staff finally put a stop to the practice of allowing Deputies to race up and down the highway, follow too close to bully legal traffic over, pass illegally, etc, etc, ?? It is a disgrace that you have allowed it so long. Just look at the number of Deputy involved crashes. How do some people sleep at night ?

Bullying traffic... YOUR SUPPOSED TO GET OUT OF THE ****ING WAY YOU SHITHEAD!

Don't speed on your way to your job at MCDonalds, or you might get a ticket. Stop breathing my air you POS.

Bullying traffic... YOUR SUPPOSED TO GET OUT OF THE ****ING WAY YOU SHITHEAD!

Don't speed on your way to your job at MCDonalds, or you might get a ticket. Stop breathing my air you POS.

With that lack of respect of the public you "serve" you better cover your tag or you will lost your job. See ya !

Deputies who race up and down the streets of the county, follow to closely and "bully" legal traffic..... These deputies are going to emergency calls to protect citizens of the county. Not all calls require lights and sirens however some do. Perhaps if you did a ride along with a deputy you would understand this alittle better. It is illegal for you not to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle. As a matter of fact maybe the man who pulled in front of deputy Powers causing her to lose control and crash felt he was being bullied by the emergency vehicle with lights and sirens going. I'll bet he had a similar attitude as you before he killed deputy Powers. Maybe instead of having drinks with a Sheriff who doesn't care about his deputies you should be grateful for the deputies who risk thier lives for you everyday. Instead of threatening thier jobs. Because you uninformed attitude offended a person who does serve you ..... Not like a waiter or maid but someone who knows thier lives are in danger just by putting on the uniform. Knowing our sheriif if you called to complain on a deputy he might be fired. But shame on you for even thinking it

Deputies who race up and down the streets of the county, follow to closely and "bully" legal traffic..... These deputies are going to emergency calls to protect citizens of the county. Not all calls require lights and sirens however some do. Perhaps if you did a ride along with a deputy you would understand this alittle better. It is illegal for you not to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle. As a matter of fact maybe the man who pulled in front of deputy Powers causing her to lose control and crash felt he was being bullied by the emergency vehicle with lights and sirens going. I'll bet he had a similar attitude as you before he killed deputy Powers. Maybe instead of having drinks with a Sheriff who doesn't care about his deputies you should be grateful for the deputies who risk thier lives for you everyday. Instead of threatening thier jobs. Because you uninformed attitude offended a person who does serve you ..... Not like a waiter or maid but someone who knows thier lives are in danger just by putting on the uniform. Knowing our sheriif if you called to complain on a deputy he might be fired. But shame on you for even thinking it

Where do I start. 90% of time when uniformed Deputies are violating various traffic laws they are doing it unlawfully and are not on an emergency call (court, lunch, roll call, etc). If they in fact are going to emergency calls without their audible and visual emergency devices activated they are in violation of both internal rules and Fla. law, as I hope you know. It is not "illegal" for a lawful vehicle to not "get out of the way" of a car without emergency equipment activated. Maybe that's the problem if you folks do not know that. Unlike you, I am not going to comment on the cause of Missy Power's crash. Thanks for your offer but I don't think a ride a long will change the facts. As to your comment about citizens calling in valid complains to your Sheriff when they see them, I would agrue that rather than worrying about them "being fired" we should worry about them being injured or worse as well as the safety of the very citizens that you profess to protect. Before you start with your b.s. insults I am a 30+ yr veteran cop with supervisor and crash investigation experiance. Watch your driving folks!

Sir I respect your experience in law enforcement. However you didn't work in Monroe County. In Monroe county deputies are not allowed to attivate lights and sirens without permission. I your 30 in law enforcement you have never heard of the move over statue how failure to yield to an emergency vehicle. You correct they are not criminal but they are aganist flordia statue and moving violations that drivers can be citied for. Yes we should all be careful driving and abuse of traffic laws by officers is a problem. In thirty years u never exceeded the posted speed limit? Unlike u the rest of us r human and we sometimes make mistakes. You r correct sir we should watch our driving and I hope we all stay safe. Enjoy your retirement and thank you for your service

Monroe county deputies are not allowed to attivate lights and sirens without permission.

What?

I didn't finish my thought... what do you mean permission?

Sir I respect your experience in law enforcement. However you didn't work in Monroe County. In Monroe county deputies are not allowed to attivate lights and sirens without permission. I your 30 in law enforcement you have never heard of the move over statue how failure to yield to an emergency vehicle. You correct they are not criminal but they are aganist flordia statue and moving violations that drivers can be citied for. Yes we should all be careful driving and abuse of traffic laws by officers is a problem. In thirty years u never exceeded the posted speed limit? Unlike u the rest of us r human and we sometimes make mistakes. You r correct sir we should watch our driving and I hope we all stay safe. Enjoy your retirement and thank you for your service

Hey, All due respect. The move over law only applies when " an authorized emergency vehicle making use of any visual signgals is parked...." Nothing about tailgating to get to the station from your home in south Miami-dade Bro. I think someone owes someone an apology. P.S. Are you really a Monroe Deputy ????

From: Rick Ramsay
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 2:02 PM
Subject: Safety of our officers requires changes in our operational response

Safety of our officers requires changes in our operational response

By Colonel Rick Ramsay



Due to the recent death of Deputy Melissa Powers, and due to a string of deaths in our agency due to traffic accidents, we have examined our current practices, and are directing that some changes take place in the way road patrol operates when responding to calls.



Since I began working here, we have had five Deputies killed in the line of duty. ALL of them were killed in Traffic Crashes. Three of the five accidents occurred when the officers were responding to a call and traveling at or near 100mph. In all three cases, this high speed response was completely un-called for. I do not say this lightly, or to be disrespectful to these fine officers, but this should be a wakeup call to everyone when it comes to how we respond to calls for service.



In 1998, Res. Deputy Dave Cormier was a passenger in a patrol vehicle when the unit he was riding in responded to a report of a stolen bicycle. The patrol car was traveling at an extremely high rate of speed when it collided with another vehicle, killing Deputy Cormier. In 2007, Deputy Robin Tanner was responding to an unattended death call at an extremely high rate of speed. Robin swerved to avoid a vehicle in front of her, lost control of her vehicle and she was killed in the resulting accident. Deputy Melissa Powers was driving at an extremely high rate of speed to help locate her Sergeant, who was out of touch on his radio. Melissa swerved to avoid a vehicle in front of her and she was killed in the resulting accident. At these high rates of speed, if even a small thing goes wrong, there is simply no time to react. Even an expert driver would not be able to handle a collision at such high speeds.



Across the nation officers are being killed, injured, and are killing and injuring others because they are driving too fast. In many instances, they are speeding to calls which do not require such a response. We talk about officer safety all of the time when it comes to armed suspects and other dangerous situations, but it is clear to me that the number one threat to a law enforcement officer is unsafe driving – particularly here in Monroe County.



We all know the officers who drive too fast and we all say to ourselves or each other, “someday something is going to happen.” Well, it is time for us to tackle this problem head-on. On the day after Deputy Powers funeral, a meeting was held at headquarters with all Commanders and Chiefs in attendance. I outlined what I see as the problems we are having, and what I want to see happen to help solve those problems. My number one concern is the safety and security of our officers, followed closely by the safety and security of the public. I am going to make every effort to see that everyone goes home at the end of their shift if I can possibly help it.



The responsibility for making sure this effort is successful and is consistently applied will be on our supervisors – primarily on our Road Patrol Sergeants. The main responsibility of a road patrol sergeant is and always has been to monitor and control his or her road patrol shift; there are some sergeants who do this very well. There are others who have not been adequately supervising and it is now time for them to step up to the plate and do their job.



From now on, I want to make it clear: it is a sergeant’s responsibility to direct the type of response a call requires. Before a deputy runs code to a call, that response must be approved by a sergeant. There are very few times such a response is called for, and even fewer where a high speed code response is required. This will ensure the sergeant knows what’s going on which is important because he or she may be called upon to justify the response.



The goal here is to limit code responses to calls. For example, there is absolutely no reason to run code to dumpster fires, brush fires , fire alarms, verbal disputes of any kind, trespassing, crashes (unless there are injuries), repetitive alarm calls, or most medical calls.



And remember, when you are responding to a routine call – and not running code – you must be driving at the speed limit. There is absolutely no reason to exceed the speed limit on a routine call. I get more complaints from the public about deputies speeding than about anything else. In addition to the deadly crashes I talked about, we have also had many vehicles badly damaged or destroyed due to high speed driving. This unsafe behavior is going to stop. If it doesn’t, someone will be held responsible for it.



Also, from now on, no more than two units will respond to any call, unless a sergeant authorizes more than two units. If a sergeant authorizes more than two units to respond to a call, he or she will specify what level of response and must be able to justify it based on the circumstances of the call. There is simply no reason to have more than two units going to most of our calls.



Remember, your safety outweighs everything else! We may see an overall slower response time as a result of these safety efforts. We may see some calls escalate because it took us a little longer to get there. But we have to get there in one piece to do any good.



We will be doing a better job of tracking our officers. Making sure we know an officer’s location is a major safety issue. Data Processing has ordered new air cards that will also act as GPS antennas. This ensures they will not be accidentally or purposefully disconnected. These new cards will also allow us to monitor vehicle speeds and locations.



I have also directed data processing to change the configuration of our in-car video systems to automatically activate at 65 mph. I am telling you this up front – consider this fair warning. We aren’t trying to trick anyone here, but we are going to make sure we do everything we can to keep our officers safe.



I’ve made this clear to Commanders, and now I’m making it clear here for everyone. Road Patrol Sergeants have now been given clear direction. They will be held accountable for this. And, if a particular sergeant doesn’t take appropriate action when directing officers to a call, I expect other sergeants on duty to step in. Road patrol officers, let me be clear: if you receive direction from any sergeant, even if it isn’t your shift sergeant, you are to follow that direction.



Some of you may feel this sounds harsh. But we are going to learn from the past and make every effort to avoid these deadly situations in the future. I look forward to any other thoughts or suggestions on how we can tackle these serious safety issues.



Colonel Rick Ramsay