Edhat Staff
Update by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office
September 5, 2023
The Sheriff Coroner’s Bureau is releasing the identity of the decedent who fell from a cliff in the 6700-block of Del Playa in Isla Vista on Saturday, September 2, 2023.
Decedent is 19-year-old Benjamin Scott Schurmer of Ojai.
Cause and manner of death are pending.
Victim in Fatal Isla Vista Fall Identified as SBCC Student
By the edhat staff
September 4, 2023
A 19-year-old Santa Barbara City College student has been identified as the victim in Saturday’s fatal cliff fall.
The incident occurred in the 6700 block of Del Playa Drive around 10:53 p.m.
According to Santa Barbara County Fire Captain Scott Safechuck, fellow students made efforts to revive the young man, who was discovered in the water approximately 40 feet below the cliff’s edge. Tragically, their efforts were not successful. The victim’s name has yet to be released.
This marks the eighth fatal cliff fall in the past two decades within this area known for erosion. The location of the fall has been identified as an area prone to such incidents.
“My heart breaks for the family and friends of the student whose life was tragically cut short along the cliffs of Isla Vista on Saturday night. I join with the many Isla Vista neighbors as well as the Santa Barbara City College and UCSB community who share in the deep pain of the loss of a young person whose bright future was before him,” said County Supervisor Laura Capps.
She continued to state that one death along these bluffs is one too many and cliff safety must be established.
“I will continue to push for protective fencing and other safety measures as well as redoubling the educational efforts led by the Isla Vista Community Service District and others. These bluffs pose a real danger to people’s lives — it is time for common sense safety solutions,” said Capps.
In April of last year, a UCSB Alumni named Chasen Alibrando, aged 25 and from Santa Monica, also suffered a fatal fall from a cliff near the 6000 block of Del Playa Drive. Over the years, fatal falls in Isla Vista have claimed the lives of both male and female students from UCSB, Santa Barbara City College, and Cal Poly.
Efforts have been made to improve safety in the area, including the installation of a fence over a decade ago. However, these safety measures have not been able to prevent fatal falls or injuries. Additionally, danger signs posted along the fences are difficult to see at night, posing a challenge for individuals navigating the area.
In response to these tragic incidents, the Isla Vista community services district initiated the Cliff Safety Campaign in January of this year, aiming to raise awareness about the dangers associated with Oceanside patios and balconies. Although Isla Vista activists emphasize the need for urgent action, such as cutting through bureaucratic red tape to allow property owners to make additional safety enhancements, such as erecting higher fences.
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September 2, 2023: Fatal Fall in Isla Vista
I would like to know more about the circumstances of this tragic death. I am at the Isla Vista bluffs several days a week. I appreciate the fact that there are not ugly fences blocking the view along most of the area. I think the current fence where this young man died is a reasonable height compromise in that location.
Someone also mentioned suicide nets. Would these even be possible given the eroded state of the cliffs? Taller fences on properties, especially rentals, but as Robert points out, the open spaces should be preserved as well.
Fences along the bluffs should be just high enough to stop people from accidentally tumbling off an unseen precipice. It’s absurd to attempt to build a barricade that can’t be climbed or crawled under or through. That may make sense in some locations, but not along an extended shoreline.
What I find sad about this entirely unnecessary tragedy, is that this is another example of the seduction of the young people who think they can come to Santa Barbara City College from other places and party. We don’t know if the family of this person was paying for his SBCC experience but there are so many SBCC students who come here not for the education but for the “experience” which includes bacchanal adventures in Isla Vista. This makes the point, again, that SBCC should concentrate on local people who actually want education. (Ojai is a lot closer to Ventura City College which is completely competent to provide any student with the necessary classes to get them started in their academic career.)
RHS – how are you blaming City College now? I know TONS of kids going to SBCC that also party in IV. Heck, I know a lot of high school kids that party in IV. Where the kids go to school is of no relevance to the issue at hand: drunk young adults and teens are falling off the cliffs. Where they choose to study is irrelevant.
Please, enough with the constant “SBCC should be locals only” and “UCSB is just a party school” trope. None of that is relevant to the cliffs. They don’t care where you are you studying or who paid for it.
RHS is correct. SACJON and everyone else is missing the point Laura Capps is willfully ignorant of the problem. I live in IV and see what goes on every weekend. Teenagers are chugging alcohol from gallon jugs sitting atop the very fences that overhang the cliff. The fences are not the problem. it’s the alcohol. The deceased was 19, not old enough to acquire alcohol, but paid parties in IV are allowed to serve alcohol to minors. This is because of lax policing policies and general political weakness, Laura Capps – case in point.
Erosion moves at about 12 inches / year. The fences are tall enough to prevent anyone falling over. Allowing teenagers unlimited freedom to drink and use drugs is why there are frequent deaths. SBCC students should not be in IV.
Parents, if your kid was not accepted to UCSB, do not send them here. No good can come of it. Keep them at home and take advantage of your local City College.
Condolences to the family.
I’m pretty sure that state law allows any California resident to go to any community college. In fact, many community colleges offer specialized programs, and an interested student must go to the one that offers their specialty. The bacchanalian lure of Isla Vista may be a problem, but SBCC can’t do a lot about that. (We do not know the circumstances of this person’s fall, however, and should not speculate.)
The voters defeated Measure S which wanted to build a gym and other athletic venues that the voters felt were unnecessary as part of the SBCC mission.
“Saying that people are coming to SBCC because it is the top CC in the nation is sophistry.” – Nope.
RHS – Did you ask the voters why they voted no? Of course not.
12:59, for what it’s worth, community colleges in CA are accredited.
The percentage of students who transfer to CA State or UC campuses is an easily-trackable measure. California CC’s are accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC).
“An accredited status from an institutional accreditor enables an institution to qualify for federal grants and contracts, to distribute federal financial aid to its students, and for students’ credits to be more easily transferred to other accredited institutions.
https://accjc.org/purpose-and-process/
COP money: google “certificate of participation municipal bond”
You don’t know. It is only enforced in the street. On balconies overhanging the cliff, it is not enforced.
Yes, I believe Machiavelli wrote about it.
Shouldn’t have been in IV. This has nothing to do with education. It’s about serving alcohol to minors.
SBCC has aggressively recruited students from out of state, out of country to get their higher tuition. SBCC has tried for years to get permission to build dormitories to bring in people to a school that is a “community” college. SBCC wants to build its empire by growing instead of shrinking which is now happening. SBCC has spent inordinate bond money on non-academic facilities such as the press box (and wanted to create an Aqua Center to support collegiate water polo for example) for the purpose of attracting students who are not interested in academic work but in partying. SBCC is now going to spend COP money on rebuilding the gym which is not exactly necessary for student improvement. SBCC wants to authorize another bond attempt for the same sort of things. We should demand and expect that SBCC prioritizes local educational needs and satisfies itself with the somewhat mundane but necessary function of giving students an affordable start on their collegiate dream or a quality local skills education for specialized work. I can’t understand how anyone would defend and encourage the idea that young people need to come to SBCC to “party.”
OLDE MANN – “SBCC students should not be in IV.” – What other cities/towns/whatever Isla Vista is, should “SBCC students” not be allowed in? How do you keep people from a certain school out of a town? Is that even legal? No.
“Keep them at home and take advantage of your local City College.” – So, no non-residents allowed at one of the top City Colleges in the nation. Gotcha. Yeah parents, don’t send your kids to the best possible school….. Way to go. Blame parents for wanting what’s best for their kids.
” Allowing teenagers unlimited freedom to drink and use drugs is why there are frequent deaths.” – That’s not “allowed,” it happens. Can’t arrest every single kid at a party every single weekend.
“paid parties in IV are allowed to serve alcohol to minors.” – No, that’s a lie. Serving minors is in no way “allowed.”
Yikes…….
OLDE – why shouldn’t he have been in IV? Because of his age or school? Both are irrelevant.
RHS may have some good points. But I’m not sure there is a direct correlation between too many non-locals being recruited to SBCC and a few individuals falling off a cliff. Need more data. (What is COP money?)
Allowed: not enforced. Not a lie.
OldeMan, your description of college students partying and getting out of hand could have been, and was, written about hundreds of years ago in Italy when the earliest universities were in existence.
I can guarantee you that more than one drunk Italian university student drowned in a local canal that other students had drowned in and had been decried in exactly the same ways back in the seventeen hundreds.
It is tragic and sad, but any claim that it is unique to our place and time is utterly ridiculous.
COP money is funds received by the issuance of Certificates of Participation by SBCC. These COPs have to be funded by a direct revenue stream. They are in effect a guarantee that a bank or lender uses as security f or loaning the money. If the revenue fails SBCC will assess local residents for the money needed to pay off the loan. COPs are seen as a way to avoid issuing bonds which have to be voter approved. Would the voters issue a bond to build a gym?
RHS – “I can’t understand how anyone would defend and encourage the idea that young people need to come to SBCC to “party.” – You can’t understand it because it’s not happening. No one here is encouraging that. The problem is you can’t stop conflating out of town students coming to one of the top CCs in the nation with “just coming here to party.” That faulty assumption is weakening your whole argument.
“SBCC has spent inordinate bond money on non-academic facilities such as the press box (and wanted to create an Aqua Center to support collegiate water polo for example) for the purpose of attracting students who are not interested in academic work but in partying.” – A better example of your unwillingness to comprehend that SBCC isn’t just a party school, is how you seem to knock collegiate sports at SBCC as if they don’t belong and just encourage partying. Collegiate sports at the JUCO level (city colleges) is a critical stepping stone for many athletes. Many are not ready for D1 sports right out of high school and the JUCO level allows them another 2 years to grow and improve before going on (hopefully) to play their sports at a higher collegiate level. These student athletes are some of the hardest working kids I’ve ever met, yet people like you disparage them. Not cool.
You need to get over this whole idea of SBCC should be for local kids only and anyone else, even student athletes, are here just to party. While SB is a party town (look where we live), you don’t get to degrade everyone who comes here to study (at any level) as simply looking to party. It’s ignorant, incredibly ignorant. Please educate yourself more on this topic.
The kid was from Ojai. There’s no reason for him to not be able to go to SBCC. It’s the #1 or #2 CC in the country.
“Would the voters issue a bond to build a gym?” – I would and so would many. SBCC sports has had a long tradition in this community. Also, they already have a gym, so not really sure what you’re on about.
OLDE MANN – yes, it is a lie. It IS enforced. You know darn well (since you live there apparently) that cops issue tickets for underage drinking and even make arrests for alcohol-related crimes. It’s OK to be wrong, but let’s not start with the lies.
There is no competent evaluator of the quality of community colleges across the nation. Nor should there be. (A couple of years ago a private for profit group out of Colo got money by claiming to be able to rand CCs. They had no standards and basically ranked the schools who gave them funds as I recall.) The academic part of a community college is to provide the introductory and basic classes that get you into more selective and challenging work in your Junior and Senior years. Saying that people are coming to SBCC because it is the top CC in the nation is sophistry.
This is so sad. Whatever is preventing the erection of taller fences needs to be eradicated. Drunk teens/young adults are not going to read signs at night or remember what they heard about the cliffs in a safety announcement. We need to prevent the bodies from falling all the way down. Simple. I feel so sad for this family. Rest in Peace young man.
SO SO SAD. His poor family.
It would seem to me that there could be some sort of “special ordinance” put in place for housing and open spaces along the cliff portion of Isla Vista. If I’m building a deck with a permit, “they” require that the railing be of a minimum height. I’m not sure how all these codes are put in place, but I would think that requiring a 5/6/9-foot fence certainly would help prevent these tragedies. Of course there’s always going to be somone who can and will get around any prevention measures, but at least an attempt was made to save them from themselves.
Here is the Memorial Fund page. https://www.gofundme.com/f/benny-schurmer
Be kind. Their 19 year old died and it is a damn shame.
How about leashing the party goers so they can freely wander, but they are gently restrained from falling over the edge? Then, no fence is needed at all. I think this makes more sense than increasing the height of the fence or adding suicide nets. What do you think?
Yes, this is a tragedy. But can we think through our suggestions more sensibly?
8:37 am – OK, so leashes are your “sensible” suggestion? Nice.
Thanks for the update. This is why I read the Edhat comments. I also have word that the location was 6709 DP. You can see on google maps where it meets the park.
Irony Deficiency SACJON. The point was that leashes are about as sensible as taller fences or suicide nets. Meaning: None of these are sensible.
word on the streets is that the kid was scaling a fence at the cliff’s edge to sneak into a pay to play party.
When the news crews covers this story, they have been using stock video showing the public areas and fence lines. I do not think they have shown the actual area where the tragic event occurred.
10:02 – how are suicide nets not sensible? You don’t see them, so they don’t block the view. They stop the momentum of the fall at the very least, making it more survivable. Seriously, why not? Easy to just say it won’t work, but why?
10:26 – Millions to install and maintain? Where’d you get that estimate? No one said they’re for preventing suicides, so just call them nets if that makes you feel better. Enforcement? Explain. You want to pay cops to stand along the cliffs? Sounds like more money over time than putting in a few nets to break the fall.
Let’s be realistic here. As long as their are young people, they will get wasted and do stupid things. Enforcement will not stop them. At least make it a little harder for them to die. How is this even being debated?
Suicide nets are not sensible in that rational choices would say spending millions of dollars on installing and maintaining such things to prevent a few childish behaviors is not reasonable. (To say nothing of the environmental impact of such devices.) And please remember these locations are not “suicide” attractions. These people are falling off because they are drinking or doing drugs and partying in absurd ways. Enforcement of rules and maybe some sort of consequence for those who make these events possible would be a reasonable alternative.
Jeez…. consensus seems to be, 1) do nothing, 2) ban SBCC students from IV, 3) ban out of town residents from attending SBCC so they don’t die in Isla Vista. Brilliant, folks. Brilliant.
Sac – You might be realizing this but you’re ideas are just that.
The community doesn’t need to adopt them just because you champion them here.
You can’t always dispel others ideas (Punishing the cliff side parties) and then accuse people of saying something totally unrelated.
Just because people don’t want nets and want enforcement doesn’t mean they are saying station a wall of LEO ok the cliffs.
That’s as outrageous of an idea as one could think of.
SBTONER – asking for ideas. Do you have one?
A teen has DIED! Stop the bickering about where he’s from or where he lived. He died. This keeps happening and as a community we need to do what we can to prevent more teens from unnecessarily dying.
I went to SBCC and am local. A lot of students came so they could get their GE done and transfer to UCSB. Logical to me. When my bf wanted to get in HSU he took classes at College of the Redwoods. I went to a party in IV once.
I feel terrible for the local family of this young man and that they may read this thread.
I agree that suicide nets would be very expensive, and please hear out my reasoning.
1. You’d have to require them the entire length of the bluff. Someone has to pay for it, and that ultimate someone would be the tenants.
2. The nets themselves would be very expensive to engineer and install. You can’t install them on the edge of the bluff, you’d have to drill back into the top of the bluff quite a distance from the edge, possibly at an angle back away from the edge. Nets would need to be very strong and the entire system would need to be engineered to hold a full net of students, because even though there is no longer an “attractive nuisance law” in CA, by building a protection, you assume the liability of protection. The engineering would have to hold a net full of students, drunk, bouncing etc. Anything less might actually increase the numbers killed each year.
3. Decks in IV. If a property owner builds or maintains a deck in IV, it needs to be engineered past capacity because no one is going to pay attention to a sign and how is the owner going to show or prove how many people were actually on the deck when it collapses? The engineer has to assume that it will be wall to wall people jumping up and down like Camp Randall Stadium Wisconsin when “Jump Around” is played at the start of the 4th quarter of the football game. The nets would need to be the same. (FUN 1 minute video at link)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoXHXLYTAgs
EDNEY – good points. Thank you for engaging in mature discussion about a serious subject.
Erosion would require reinstalling the nets every year or two.
OLDE – good point. So, maybe the nets won’t work. Next idea. This is our community, we should try to help. Right?