The medical examiner’s office of El Paso County, Texas, will likely rule the death of a 55-year-old Cuban Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee a homicide.
According to The Washington Post, Geraldo Lunas Campos’ death was originally announced by ICE officials two weeks ago, with no stated cause.
However, “an employee of El Paso County’s Office of the Medical Examiner told Lunas Campos’s daughter this week that, subject to results of a toxicology report, the office is likely to classify the death as a homicide, according to a recording of the conversation,” said the report. “In the recording … the employee said a doctor there ‘is listing the preliminary cause of death as asphyxia due to neck and chest compression,’ which means Lunas Campos did not get enough oxygen because of pressure on his neck and chest. Pending the results of a toxicology report, the staffer said on the recording, ‘our doctor is believing that we’re going to be listing the manner of death as homicide.’”
Santos Jesus Flores, who was detained in the same segregation unit as Lunas Campos, told The Post “he saw at least five guards struggling with Lunas Campos after he refused to enter the segregation unit, complaining that he didn’t have his medications. Flores said he saw guards choking Lunas Campos and heard Lunas Campos repeatedly saying, ‘No puedo respirar’ — Spanish for ‘I can’t breathe.’ Medical staff tried to resuscitate him for an hour, after which they took his body away, Flores said.”
Such a determination of death for Lunas Campos, whom ICE says had an extensive criminal record dating back to 1997, “would almost certainly draw attention to Camp East Montana, a colossal makeshift tent encampment on the Mexican border where migrants have reported substandard conditions and physical abuse, and ICE’s own inspectors have cited dozens of violations of federal detention standards,” the report continued.
Anger at ICE over brutal tactics is erupting around the country, with the epicenter of protests being Minneapolis, where earlier this month an ICE agent fatally shot 37-year-old mother of three Renee Nicole Good in the head at close range through the window of her car.
The new reporting horrified American Immigration Council fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, who posted, “Be ready for the Trump admin to highlight this guy’s lengthy criminal record to eliminate any sympathy for him, even though none of that justifies being choked to death by guards at a detention center.”
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