Known for his cool demeanor and frank personality, Isla Vista Foot Patrol Deputy Mark Ward will retire from the Sheriff’s Office on March 28 — exactly a week before this year’s Deltopia — after 27 years of police work. He spent much of that time in the rambunctious college town, with his final stretch on bike patrol.
As a young man, Ward was inspired to go into law enforcement in part because his dad was a sheriff and many of his mom’s friends were cops. “You really have to do it right every time,” Ward said of policing. “Everyone has bad days. You have to get past that. It’s really scary what you have to do every day.”
Scary seems to be the applicable word for Isla Vista right now: Have recent violent incidents just been an unfortunate string of events, or is Isla Vista actually worse off than it was decades ago? Ward is one of the few people in town fit to answer that question. He sat down with The Santa Barbara Independent over a cup of coffee to reflect on his career and the good, the bad, and the ugly of I.V.