Labor Day Weekend in Santa Barbara County Sees Fatal Incidents, Fires, and Collisions

[Updated: Tue., Sept. 5, 2023, 3:28pm]

It may have been the residual effects from the Super Blue Moon Thursday night, or it was just the three-day holiday weekend, but Santa Barbara County emergency and law enforcement agencies were busy over Labor Day weekend, responding to assaults, collisions, a dumpster fire, and a tragic fall off a cliff that left a college student dead in Isla Vista. Here’s a brief recap of what happened over the weekend.

Saturday, September 2

A man was stabbed early Saturday morning on the Eastside near Milpas and Ortega streets, with Santa Barbara police responding to the scene to find the victim with a single stab wound to the chest. According to police reports, the victim and the suspect — who fled the scene and was not apprehended — were involved in “some type of verbal altercation” prior to the incident. The victim was transported to the hospital and was reported to be in stable condition; the investigation is ongoing, but police say it is an isolated incident and not gang-related.

Later that night, Santa Barbara County Fire responded to an apartment fire in the Ellwood neighborhood of Goleta. County Fire spokesperson Scott Safechuck said that residents returned to their home on Mathilda Drive around 10:30 p.m. to find their smoke detector alerting and an active fire in their unit. The residents used a fire extinguisher to douse the fire, which was believed to be confined to a piece of furniture, although all three tenants were displaced to the fire.

Less than a half-hour later, County Fire responded to another call a couple of miles away in Isla Vista, where a 19-year-old male had reportedly fallen from a cliff 40 feet to the beach below. The incident occurred near the 6700 block of Del Playa Drive shortly before 11 p.m., and although there were fellow students at the scene who pulled the victim from the water to attempt CPR, Safechuck reported that the teenager was pronounced dead on the scene. It was the eighth fatal cliff fall in Isla Vista over the past 20 years.

On Tuesday afternoon, Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Raquel Zick announced the Coroner’s Bureau had identified the victim as 19-year-old Benjamin Scott Schurmer of Ojai. County Supervisor Laura Capps, who represents Isla Vista, confirmed in a statement on the incident that he was a student at Santa Barbara City College.

“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,” Capps wrote. “One death along these bluffs is one too many — and we have had far too many. Enough is enough: Cliff safety must be the driving factor. 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.”

Sunday, September 3

An inmate at Santa Barbara County’s Main Jail was reported dead after being found unresponsive in his cell and transported to the hospital early Sunday morning, according to a statement from Zick.

Zick said the decedent — who was identified Tuesday as 37-year-old Goleta resident Luis Enrique Duron Rodriguez — had been booked into the jail on Thursday, August 31, on felony charges of driving under the influence resulting in injury and hit-and-run with injuries, as well as misdemeanor reckless driving. He was placed in a “single observation cell due to medical concerns,” and checked at regular intervals, Zick said, until early Sunday when he was discovered unresponsive by deputies who attempted life-saving measures with WellPath medical staff. County Fire and American Medical Response were called to the jail, and the inmate was transported by paramedics to a nearby hospital, where he died a few hours later.

Shortly before noon on Sunday, the Santa Barbara City Fire Department doused a fire in an apartment complex on the Westside near Modoc Road. The fire was outside the complex and included a dumpster, a nearby tree, and furniture.

Later around 5 p.m., County Fire and California Highway Patrol (CHP) responded to a two-vehicle collision in Orcutt with four occupants sustaining moderate injuries. The injured occupants, three adult females and one minor female, were transported via two ambulances to Marian Regional Medical Center. 

Monday, September 4

On Labor Day around 4:30 p.m., a woman escaped a scary situation near Highway 1 in Orcutt after being involved in a solo collision that left her car disabled directly on the train tracks in the path of an oncoming Amtrak Pacific Surfliner. She was able to escape unscathed, though the train plowed into her black sedan and dragged it 600 feet along the tracks before coming to a halt. There were no injuries reported among the 95 passengers on board, and the accident is under investigation.

Then in the early evening around 6 p.m., emergency crews were called to the scene of a motorcycle accident that sparked a vegetation fire near Vandenberg Village. The motorcyclist sustained major injuries and was transported to the hospital while firefighters worked on the small blaze, which was stopped at under two acres less than an hour later.

According to Sheriff’s Office arrest logs, a total of 42 drivers were arrested for DUI from Friday to Monday — with 12 arrested on Saturday and 14 on Sunday — while a DUI checkpoint conducted by the Santa Maria Police Department on Friday night yielded three DUI arrests and 12 citations out of 174 cars screened. The Santa Barbara Police Department booked 26 people into county jail and recorded four DUI arrests over the three-day weekend.