The Rear View Mirror

Throwing Punches: Violence in Isla Vista

Editor’s Note:  Jill Messina is a recent UCSB graduate.  She will be contributing a series of weekly columns on her experiences during her term at UCSB.   

            As indicated by the Clery Report, crime in I.V. more than quadruples crime in Santa Barbara County.  Moreover, a large part of this crime rate is violence related.  My first weekend in I.V., I felt the ominous cloud that hovers over I.V. once the sun goes down.  Just the density of population alone is stifling enough.  Throw in major amounts of alcohol consumption, an assortment of drugs, and it’s no wonder this little college town is known for its wild antics and ‘let’s get fucked up’ motto.  Along with this reputation comes a flock of people who don’t even live in Santa Barbara, but want to partake in the I.V. festivities because of all the crazy stories they’ve heard.   

            My boyfriend Mark and I had both heard about the unfortunate student who had died in Isla Vista not long ago.  We’d heard a myriad of stories of college kids plummeting to their deaths from cliffs, or being literally knocked out of their socks by Attias, but when Mark’s professor at city college pointed out that the student who once sit next to him in class was the victim of this heinous act of violence, it felt a lot closer to home for my boyfriend.  This was the guy who had offered Mark his notes when he’d noticed he’d been absent the day before.  A nice guy; a nice guy that Mark now had a face to match with what had seemed before like a distant story.  Needless to say, he was very disturbed and distraught upon this realization.

            We were infuriated and heartbroken to find that Brad Jones had been knocked out for defending his friend after the group of guys had called her a slut.  This is the thing: people go to I.V. looking for trouble.  What kind of atmosphere does this create?  The kind where innocent people are assaulted, or in this case, murdered. 

When I lived in I.V., it almost felt like I was traversing a land mine, because I never knew where the next fight would unexpectedly explode.  Once I had been knocked over by a fight that had detonated so quickly I didn’t have time to flee.  And, the worst part was students standing by watching it as if it were a show, an added bonus.  They could tell their friends they’d truly had the entire Isla Vista experience.  Sometimes partiers would root for a particular side, or maybe they’d just jump in, not even being coherent enough to know who they were fighting or why. Even in the dead of night, I was often awakened by some form of escalating confrontation at some nearby locale.  I never seemed to be able to escape it.

I don’t have many fond memories of the place I used to live where I was frightened to walk the half of block to get to my car past dark.  Normally, I would run.  Seeing girls walking home late at night was enough to make me shudder, because you never know what could happen at any given moment in the little town they call Isla Vista.