Witness describes chokehold as Texas ICE detainee death labeled homicide

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Cuban immigrant died in a Texas immigration detention facility earlier this month during an altercation with guards, and the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office has indicated the death will likely be classified as a homicide, according to a preliminary autopsy finding provided to the family.

Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, was described by federal authorities as having died amid a suicide attempt, but a witness account reviewed by the AP says guards pinned and choked him after he was handcuffed. The conflicting descriptions have intensified scrutiny of detention conditions at a time when the federal government has been rounding up and detaining immigrants nationwide.

The family was told by the El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office that a preliminary autopsy report said the death was a homicide resulting from asphyxia from chest and neck compression, according to a recording of a call reviewed by the AP. The AP reported that a witness told it Lunas Campos died after being handcuffed, tackled by guards and placed in a chokehold until he lost consciousness.

ICE had earlier said in a public notice that Lunas Campos died at Camp East Montana and did not mention an altercation with staff immediately before his death. In response to questions from the AP, the Department of Homeland Security amended its account, saying in a statement attributed to DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin that Campos violently resisted security staff, and that “During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness.”

Another detainee, Santos Jesús Flores, described observing the incident through a window from his cell in a special housing unit where detainees are held in isolation for disciplinary infractions. Flores said that when he looked on, Lunas Campos was already handcuffed when at least five guards pinned him to the floor and at least one squeezed his arm around the detainee’s neck, and that he became motionless within about five minutes. Flores told the AP that after he stopped breathing, guards removed the handcuffs.

The DHS-ICE account also described a different sequence. According to ICE’s Jan. 9 release, Lunas Campos became disruptive while in line for medication and refused to return to his assigned dorm, after which he was taken to segregation. In that account, staff observed him in distress, contacted on-site medical personnel for assistance, initiated lifesaving measures and requested emergency medical services, and he was pronounced dead after paramedics arrived.

It was not immediately clear whether the guards present when Lunas Campos died were government employees or employees of a private contractor that operates Camp Montana East, a tent facility constructed in the desert on the grounds of Fort Bliss. The AP reported previously that the $1.2 billion facility is expected to become the largest detention facility in the United States and is being built and operated by Acquisition Logistics LLC, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.

Lunas Campos had been among the first detainees sent to Camp Montana East, arriving in September after ICE arrested him in Rochester, New York, where he lived for more than two decades. The AP reported that he was legally admitted to the U.S. in 1996 as part of a wave of Cuban immigrants seeking to reach Florida by boat, and that ICE said he was picked up in July as part of an enforcement operation tied to criminal convictions that made him eligible for removal.

The AP reported that New York court records show Lunas Campos was convicted in 2003 of sexual contact with an individual under 11, with a one-year sentence and placement on the state’s sex offender registry. It also said he was sentenced in 2009 to five years in prison and three years of supervision after a conviction for attempting to sell a controlled substance, and that he completed the sentence in January 2017. His adult daughter, Kary Lunas, told the AP that the child sexual abuse accusation was false and said, “My father was not a child molester.”

Forensic pathologist Dr. Victor Weedn, who has studied prone restraint deaths, said that a preliminary ruling of homicide indicates guards’ actions caused Lunas Campos’ death but does not necessarily mean they intended to kill. Weedn said, “This probably passes the ‘but for’ test. ‘But for’ the actions of the officers, he would not have died. For us, that’s generally a homicide.”

Jeanette Pagan-Lopez, the mother of Lunas Campos’ two youngest children, said the day after he died the medical examiner’s office called to tell her that his body was at the county morgue. She said she called ICE for details and was told the cause of death was still pending and toxicology results were awaited, and that an ICE assistant director told her the only way his body could be returned to Rochester without charge was if she agreed to cremation; Pagan-Lopez said she declined.

Pagan-Lopez said she has been trying to raise money for shipping and a funeral and that, after failing to get information from ICE, she was put in touch with Flores by another detainee at Camp Montana East. Flores said he wanted to highlight what he described as widespread abuse by guards, saying, “in this place, guards abuse people a lot.” Pagan-Lopez said, “I just want justice, and his body here. That’s all I want.”

Attanasio reported from Seattle, and Foley from Iowa City.

Contact the AP’s global investigative team at [email protected] or https://www.ap.org/tips/.