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At Point Fermin last year where one person was found dead, another injured | Photo by Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer via Flickr
One person is dead (now reported as a 50-year-old woman) after they went over the side of a cliff near Point Fermin 1:40 p.m. this afternoon in San Pedro (map). No preliminary reports on how this happened are out yet, but this cliff is no stranger to incidents like today (Update: An officer at the Harbor Division said that it appears to be a suicide).
"It happens more often than we like," explained Brian Humphrey, spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. Some are accidental, purposeful and are found to be undetermined to why someone went over the side.
Based on previous incidents, three likely scenarios will play out of the investigation: the person either fell, jumped or was washed ashore. But as a precaution, the LAPD treats deaths here as a crime scene until they can verify what has happened.
For the most part, the cliff is fenced and to put oneself in a position of falling, you must go through a physical effort of some sort.
Humphrey did a quick search for how many times the fire department has responded to the area. Today was the 8th time since May 18 and that was not the first time, by any means, in 2008. (If you're curious, here are the exact dates: May 18, June 1, June 4, June 7, June 17, June 25, July 1). However, he noted that some calls to the area have been false alarms for debris that people think might be a person, but many have not been, either ending in injury or death.
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Is this where one dufus went over the side because he was watching them recover a body and leaned out too far?
This is the same park where that USC player from last January died. I grew up across the street from the park (moved away 13 years ago), and we heard helicopters responding to a cliff incident what seems like once a month or so.
It's true, from my memory, that you don't just "fall" off this cliff. The most common issue was that people would be drunk or high, go through the fenced off area into "sunken city" - an part of a road that has fallen apart down there, and then fall off the cliff.
Speaking with Rec and Parks folks in the past, they estimate that someone goes over the cliffs or has to be rescued from the bottom about 10-12 times each year, on average.