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The Alameda County Coroner’s office has confirmed rumors that a young man fell to his death from the KPFA antenna tower at 4 a.m. on the morning of Thanksgiving day. The office identified him as Steven Tassell, 25, of Antioch.  

KPFA Chief Engineer Michael Yoshida told the Planet that the victim’s body was discovered by Steve Hawes from the station’s technical staff on Thursday morning. Tassell had fallen from the 300 foot antenna tower located on Grizzly Peak in the Oakland hills though the roof of the repair shop in the transmitter building below.  

Yoshida said that the coroner’s office personnel on the scene estimated that Tassell fell about 200 feet. Based on a text message the victim sent from a cell phone, time of death was estimated to be about 4:30 a.m.  

There has been speculation that some kind of sabotage effort might have been involved, but this has not been confirmed. Yoshida said that he thought that deliberate sabotage was unlikely to have been the reason the victim climbed the tower, because he had no tools or climbing equipment with him.  

KPFA has been on the air as usual since the accident since it did not affect the station’s transmission equipment. Pacifica executive director Arlene Engelhardt and KPFA’s acting general manager Ahmad Anderson could not be reached for comment. Oakland police officials had a mandatory day off on Monday. so they also had no comment.