Ben Ehrenreich’s story on a transgendered detainee — a Mexican native who was pulled over in LA for driving under the influence — who died in detention is in the new issue of Los Angeles Magazine. It’s a great, compelling article, and the fact that it could be researched at all seems almost impossible, given his description of the detention centers’ lack of regulation and oversight.
When I was on USC’s crew team, Terminal Island sat out in the harbor just out of reach. We’d joke about rowing around it, abandoning people to it. It had a jail then, but not a detention center. That detention center is where Victoria Arellano died.
If you can find the article (“A Death on Terminal Island”) on the LA Magazine website, you’re a better researcher than I am. One of the benefits of pet/housesitting is reading someone else’s periodicals.
