Mayor Karen Bass questioned police training to handle mental health crises after the city released graphic video footage of officers’ actions.
Page A7From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 2 September 2026
ICE detainee dies hours after admission as LA police custody deaths trigger investigations
This thread runs through the thin membrane of official custody: one ICE detainee dies just hours after being admitted, two men die in LAPD custody, and only then do investigations begin. The receipts are blunt—the system’s response is triggered by death, not by prevention, and the stakes are measured in bodies. The joke is the mechanism: the agencies move only when the outcome is fatal, and the ordinary person sees the rug-pull—no investigation until someone fails to make it out. The policy is reactive, not proactive. The reader opens the fold and finds the line is not exaggeration: the investigations are documented, but only as aftermath. The stakes are immediate: the question is not whether the process works, but who survives it. The punchline is the sequence—death, then action, never the reverse.
“Two men die in police and immigration custody, and suddenly the investigators show up. The system only moves when the bodies do. The stakes: who gets out alive, and who doesn’t get counted.”
“There’s no systemic problem here, just unfortunate events. ICE and LAPD take safety seriously, and investigations are standard procedure. Did I say 'standard'? Maybe they're, uh, responsive. I think that’s the word.”
The receipts
Lianyong Wei's death marks the 57th death of an immigrant detainee held in the care of the government since the start of President Trump's second term. Twenty-four of those have occurred since Jan. 1.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.