Latest news with #FreeingJuanita
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Yahoo
Surfer who died at NYC beach got caught in deadly jetty residents begged officials to remove for years
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. 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. '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. '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. 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.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Surfer who drowned at Jacob Riis beach in Queens was promising documentary filmmaker
A drowning surfer who died after being carried out of the ocean by good Samaritans at Queens' Jacob Riis Park was a rising documentary filmmaker whose first feature is about to have its US premiere. Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers, 35, was pulled out of the ocean about 12:40 p.m. Saturday and rushed by medics from the Rockaways to Coney Island Hospital, where he died. Rogers' debut feature-length documentary, 'Freeing Juanita', premiered at the DocsMX Film Festival in Mexico City in December and opens on June 4 as part of the New Jersey Film Festival. The film follows a couple from Guatemala who travel 1,000 miles to northern Mexico to try and free their niece Juanita, who has been detained for seven years after confessing to a crime she didn't commit in a language she doesn't speak. HIs drowning left friends reeling. His wife and family declined to speak to a reporter. 'It's incredibly sad news as Sebastian was such a kind soul and warm-hearted human,' one friend, Chris Westcott, said in a Facebook post, adding that Rogers had apparently gotten caught on a submerged wooden jetty. 'I've known Sebastian for the last 10 years, as he came out to visit and surf with me in Rockaway periodically,' Westcott wrote. 'Sebastian was a talented cinematographer, human rights activist, and total sweetheart who put everyone around him at ease with his presence.' The Spanish-American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer graduated magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelors degree in anthropology and film in 2013 and lived in Crown Heights. Rogers got his professional start in Nashville, making videos to support workers' rights, including the Fight for $15 movement, according to his website. According to the website of arts organization Art21, where Rogers was a contributor, his work has been featured at SXSW and many other festivals and published by The New York Times and PBS. He also loved to surf. 'Sebastian had that deep love and appreciation of the ocean,' Westcott said on Facebook. 'I remember the way his eyes lit up in and around the water.' Rockaway is known as the surfing mecca of New York City, where wave-chasers brave the elements throughout the year in wetsuits to get their fix. The Queens beach is the only place in the city where surfing is legal, according to the city Parks Department, with the sport allowed in three sections of the water. Jacob Riis Park's beach is managed separately by the National Park Service. When Rogers disappeared underwater, two bystanders rushed to his aid after noticing his board in the water sticking up in the air, according to Rockaway resident Robert Conti, 58. Robert Conti's son, 18-year-old son Owen Conti , a city Parks Department summer lifeguard in the Rockaways, and his friend who is a former lifeguard were able to get Rogers out of the water and provided CPR. The elder Conti was alerted to the emergency by his son and raced to the beach. 'What they saw from the shoreline was the board sticking straight up in the air and the board wouldn't do that unless it was hung up,' Robert Conti said. 'I got there probably a few minutes after they started the CPR and they rolled him over a couple of times on his side and there was a lot of fluid coming out of his mouth. It was upsetting to see.' A city Medical Examiner autopsy determined Rogers died from drowning.
