ICE detainee's death ruled a homicide by medical examiner

The death of an immigrant detainee at an El Paso facility has been ruled a homicide, according to the final autopsy report obtained Thursday by NBC News.

Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, originally from Cuba, died Jan. 3 at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Camp East Montana facility at Fort Bliss.

“Based on the investigative and examination findings, it is my opinion that the cause of death is asphyxia due to neck and torso compression. The manner of death is homicide,” the El Paso county medical examiner concluded in the report. Homicide means a person causes the death of another one, regardless of intent.

When ICE first reported his death in a Jan. 9 press release, it stated that Lunas Campos had experienced “medical distress.” The agency said medical staff responded and initiated lifesaving measures and requested emergency medical services.

In an email to NBC News on Thursday, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson stated that Lunas Campos had attempted to take his own life and that the security staff had “immediately intervened to save his life.”

“Campos violently resisted the security staff and continued to attempt to take his life,” the DHS email stated. “During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness. Medical staff was immediately called and responded. After repeated attempts to resuscitate him, EMTs declared him deceased on the scene.”

DHS said that it’s still an active investigation and that “ICE takes seriously the health and safety of all those detained in our custody.”

The autopsy report was provided to NBC News in response to a Freedom of Information request. The Washington Post first reported on the autopsy findings last week.

Lunas Campos had been in Camp East Montana since Sept. 6 last year. He had multiple convictions over the years since entering the country in 1996, public records show, including first-degree sexual abuse involving a child under the age of 11 and unlawful possession of a weapon.

ICE said Lunas Campos was ordered removed from the U.S. on March 1, 2005, but the government could not obtain travel documents for him.

According to ICE, Lunas Campos had been in “segregation,” which means he was separated from the facility’s general population. ICE said he was put in segregation because he “became disruptive while in line for medication and refused to return to his assigned dorm.”

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Lunas Campos had a history of bipolar disorder and anxiety, the autopsy report states.

The medical examiner’s report stated that Lunas Campos had scattered superficial abrasions on his body, hemorrhage in muscles and connective tissues on the neck, and signs of smaller hemorrhaging on the eyelids and skin of the neck.

The medical examiner stated that Lunas Campos “was witnessed to become unresponsive while being physically restrained by law enforcement.”

Lunas Campos is one of three detainees who have died at the Camp East Montana ICE facility at Fort Bliss. DHS stated in its email that there has been no spike in detainee deaths and that as bed space has rapidly expanded, “we have maintained higher standard of care than most prisons that hold U.S. citizens — including providing access to proper medical care.”

Camp East Montana is the single largest ICE detention facility in the country with almost 3,000 detainees. Eighty percent of current detainees at Camp East Montana have no criminal background, according to ICE data.