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Dangerous jetty caused surfer’s tragic death at federal park in Queens: residents

April 19, 2025
in News
Dangerous jetty caused surfer’s tragic death at federal park in Queens: residents
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An award-winning filmmaker drowned at Jacob Riis Park in Queens last week after his surfboard apparently got tangled in a decrepit wooden jetty, a deadly obstruction residents have begged the federal government to remove for years.

Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers, 35, of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, drowned on April 12 while surfing near the federally-owned park’s eastern shoreline at Bay 1, police sources said. The area is a longtime hotspot for queer sunbathers that is now plagued by erosion rapidly washing away the beach.

The dilapidated, 70-plus-year-old jetties in the area are routinely submerged under water at high tide, so it’s unclear if Rogers was trying to navigate them or didn’t see them. His lifeless body was pulled ashore by local beachgoers who spotted a surfboard “tombstoning,” with half of it sticking upright out of the water. They unsuccessfully tried to revive Rogers.

Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers, an award-winning 35-year-old filmmaker seen here behind a movie camera, drowned surfing April 12  after his board apparently got tangled in wooden jetties along notoriously treacherous waters at Jacob Riis Park in Queens.
Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers, an award-winning 35-year-old filmmaker, drowned surfing April 12 after his board apparently got tangled in wooden jetties along notoriously treacherous waters at Jacob Riis Park in Queens. Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers/ Facebook

Riis Park has been the scene of at least three teen drownings when lifeguards weren’t present during the past two years, including two who died last June at Bay 1, according to the Rockaway Times.

Rockaways residents and a councilwoman representing nearby beachfront communities told The Post they’ve been trying to get the National Park Service or US Army Corps of Engineers to remove the jetties for years, but the pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

Instead, they said they’ve been repeatedly told the issue needs further studying.

Wooden jetties.
Rockaway residents have been demanding for years that the National Park Service remove 70-plus-year-old wooden jetties at Bay 1 in Jacob Riis Park because they believe they are unsafe at high tide. Helayne Seidman

“These agencies have continued to drag their feet on this, and now we have a tragedy on our hands,” said Council Minority Leader Joann Ariola (R-Queens). “We should not have to wait for a disaster to strike before changes are made.”

“The reality is that these jetties are killing people,” said an avid surfer and longtime resident of Neponsit, which borders Riis’ Bay 1.

Rogers would routinely come to Rockaway to surf over the past decade and “had a deep love and appreciation of the ocean,” recalled his friend and fellow surfer Chris Westcott on Facebook.

Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers seen here in a wetsuit catching a wave loved to surf and had been coming to Jacob Riis Park for 10 years, recalled his friend Chris Westcott.
Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers loved to surf and had been coming to Jacob Riis Park for 10 years, recalled his friend Chris Westcott. Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers/ Facebook

“Sebastian was a talented cinematographer, human rights activist, and total sweetheart who put everyone around him at ease with his presence,” he said. “I remember the way his eyes lit up in and around the water.”

Rogers’ films include the 2021 documentary “The Art of Making It,” which follows a group of rising artists and won an Audience Award at the SXSW festival.

The Spanish-American cinematographer recently directed “Freeing Juanita,” a documentary that premiered in December and follows a Guatemalan family’s thousand-mile journey to Mexico to help free a loved one unjustly imprisoned for a crime she didn’t commit.

Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers in a blue winter coat and black pants on a beach with snow on the beach and lines of footprints throw the snow
Rodgers’ films include the 2021 documentary “The Art of Making It,” which won an Audience Award at the SXSW festival. Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers/ Facebook
Jacob Riis Park with orange cones on the beach and a blue and white sign with the park's name on it
Jacob Riis Park is plagued by soil erosion that have created dangerous surfing and swimming conditions. Helayne Seidman

Both Ariola and members of the Neponsit Property Owners Association said the park service has its priorities backwards considering the agency allowed the city to site a notorious “tent city” housing 2,000 migrants from November 2023 through January at nearby Floyd Bennet Field in Brooklyn — despite the federal parkland being in a high-risk flood zone.

Riis’ beaches, which stretch over a mile along the west side of the Rockaway peninsula, have been plagued by growing sand erosion over the past decade that have contributed to dangerous swimming conditions.

In 2023, the Army Corps dumped 360,000 cubic yards of sand on the beach to help replenish it, but most of it washed away within six months — exposing deteriorating wooden groins, rockwork, and other structures. 

The erosion created enough unsafe conditions for the NPS to restrict public access last summer along Bays 1 to 5 on the park’s east end near Neponsit.

The Neponsit Property Owners Association says it prefers Bay 1 remain shuttered — at least this upcoming beach season — to avoid more tragedies.

The NPS did not return messages, and Rogers’ family could not be reached for comment.

The post Dangerous jetty caused surfer’s tragic death at federal park in Queens: residents appeared first on New York Post.

Tags: army corps of engineersBeachesdrowningsNational Park ServiceQueensrockawayssurfing
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