WASHINGTON (AP) — A Cuban immigrant died at a Texas immigration detention center earlier this month during an altercation with guards, and the local medical examiner has indicated that his death will likely be ruled a homicide.
The federal government gave a different account of the Jan. 3 death of Geraldo Lunas Campos, saying the inmate was trying to kill himself and staff tried to save him.
A witness told The Associated Press that Lunas Campos died after being handcuffed, attacked by guards and placed in a headlock until he lost consciousness. The immigrant’s family was told Wednesday by the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office that a preliminary autopsy report said the death was a homicide resulting from asphyxiation due to chest and neck compression, according to a transcript of the call reviewed by the AP.
The death and conflicting accounts have intensified scrutiny of immigration prison conditions at a time when the government has rounded up immigrants in large numbers across the country and held them in facilities such as the one in El Paso, where Lunas Campos died.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is required by law to issue public notices of inmate deaths. Last week, Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old father of four and registered sex offender, was said to have died at Camp East Montana, but did not mention that he was involved in an altercation with staff immediately before his death.
In response to questions from the AP, the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, on Thursday changed its account of Lunas Campos’ death, saying he tried to kill himself.
“Campos violently resisted security personnel and continued to attempt to take his own life,” said DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. “During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness.”
In an interview before DHS updated its account, inmate Santos Jesús Flores, 47, of El Salvador, said he witnessed the incident through the window of his cell in the special housing unit, where inmates are held in isolation for disciplinary violations.
“He didn’t want to go into the cell where they were going to put him,” Flores told the AP Thursday, speaking in Spanish from a phone at the facility. “The last thing he said was he couldn’t breathe.”
Among the first sent to Camp Montana East
Camp Montana East is a sprawling, hastily constructed tent in the desert on the grounds of Fort Bliss, an Army base. The AP reported in August that the $1.2 billion facility, which is expected to become the largest detention facility in the United States, was built and operated by a private contractor based in a single-family home in Richmond, Virginia. The company, Acquisition Logistics LLC, had no prior experience running a correctional facility.
It was not immediately clear whether the guards present at Lunas Campos’ death were government employees or those of the private contractor. Emails seeking comment from Acquisition Logistics executives went unanswered Thursday.
Lunas Campos was among the first detainees sent to Camp Montana East, arriving in September after ICE arrested him in Rochester, New York, where he had lived for more than two decades. He was legally admitted to the US in 1996, part of a wave of Cuban immigrants trying to reach Florida by boat.
ICE said he was picked up in July as part of a planned law enforcement operation because of criminal convictions that made him eligible for removal.
New York court records show Lunas Campos was convicted in 2003 of having sex with a person under the age of 11, a felony for which he was sentenced to a year in prison and placed on the state’s sex offender registry.
Lunas Campos was also sentenced to five years in prison and three years of supervised release in 2009 after being convicted of attempting to sell a controlled substance, according to New York corrections records. He completed his sentence in January 2017.
Lunas Campos’ adult daughter said the child sex abuse allegation is false, made as part of a contentious custody battle.
“My father was not a child abuser,” said Kary Lunas, 25. “He was a good father. He was a human being.”
Conflicting accounts
On the day he died, according to ICE, Lunas Campos became disruptive while in line for medication and refused to return to his assigned home. He was then taken to the segregation block.
“While in segregation, staff observed him in distress and contacted on-site medical personnel for assistance,” the agency said in its Jan. 9 statement. “Medical personnel responded, initiated life-saving measures and requested emergency medical services.”
Lunas Campos was pronounced dead after paramedics arrived.
Flores said the account omitted key details — Lunas Campos was already handcuffed when at least five guards pinned him to the floor and at least one grabbed his arm around the inmate’s neck.
Within about five minutes, Flores said, Lunas Campos was not moving.
“After he stopped breathing, they took the handcuffs off,” Flores said.
Flores is not represented by a lawyer and said he has already consented to deportation to his home country. While he acknowledged he was taking a risk by speaking to the AP, Flores said he wanted to point out that “in this place, the guards abuse people a lot.”
He said several inmates at the facility witnessed the altercation, and security cameras there should have captured the events. Flores also said investigators did not interview him.
DHS did not respond to questions about whether Lunas Campos was handcuffed when they said he tried to kill himself or how exactly he tried to kill himself.
“ICE takes the health and safety of all detainees in our custody seriously,” McLaughlin said. “This is still an active investigation and more details are forthcoming.”
DHS has not said whether other agencies are investigating. The El Paso medical examiner’s office confirmed Thursday that it had performed an autopsy, but declined to comment further.
A final homicide determination by the medical examiner would usually be critical in determining whether the guards are held criminally or civilly liable. When such deaths are ruled accidental or other than homicide, they are less likely to trigger criminal investigations, while civil wrongful-death lawsuits become harder to prove.
The fact that Lunas Campos died on a military base could also limit the legal jurisdiction of state and local officials to investigate. A spokesman for the El Paso district attorney’s office declined to comment Thursday on whether it was involved in an investigation.
The deaths of inmates and other inmates after officers hold them face down and apply pressure to their backs and necks to restrain them has been a problem in law enforcement for decades. A 2024 AP investigation documented hundreds of deaths during encounters with police in which people were restrained in a prone position. Many uttered “I can’t breathe” before choking, according to dozens of body camera and bystander videos. Authorities often try to shift the blame for such deaths onto pre-existing medical conditions or drug use.
Dr. Victor Weedn, a forensic pathologist who studies custodial deaths, said the preliminary autopsy ruling of homicide indicates the guards’ actions caused Lunas Campos’ death, but does not mean they intended to kill. He said the coroner’s office may be under pressure to no longer call it a homicide, but will likely “stick to its guns.”
“This probably passes the ‘if for’ test.” “If for” the officers’ actions, he would not have died. For us, this is generally a homicide,” he said.
“I just want justice and his body here”
Jeanette Pagan-Lopez, the mother of Lunas Campos’ two younger children, said the day after his death, the coroner’s office called to inform her that his body was at the county morgue. She immediately called ICE to find out what happened.
Pagan-Lopez, who lives in Rochester, said the deputy director of ICE’s El Paso office eventually called her back. She said the official told her the cause of death was still pending and she was awaiting the results of the toxicology report. He also told her that the only way Lunas Campos’ body could be returned to Rochester for free was if she consented to him being cremated, she said.
Pagan-Lopez refused and is now seeking help from family and friends to raise the money needed to ship her body home and pay for a funeral.
After being unable to get details about the circumstances of her death from ICE, Pagan-Lopez said she received a call from an inmate at Camp Montana East, who then put her in touch with Flores, who first told her about the altercation with the guards.
Since then, she said she has called ICE repeatedly but has not heard back. Pagan-Lopez, who is a U.S. citizen, said she also called the FBI twice, where an agent took her information and then hung up.
Pagan-Lopez said she and Lunas Campos were together for about 15 years before breaking up eight years ago. She described him as a caring father who, until his incarceration, worked a minimum-wage job at a furniture store, the only job she said she was able to find because of his record.
She said that in the family’s last phone call the week after Christmas, Lunas Campos spoke to his children about his expected deportation back to Cuba. He said he wanted them to visit the island so he could stay in their lives.
“He wasn’t a bad guy,” Pagan-Lopez said. “I just want justice and his body here. That’s all I want.”
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Attanasio reported from Seattle and Foley from Iowa City.
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Contact AP’s global investigative team at investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/.