As staff tried to resuscitate Geraldo Lunas Campos at an immigrant detention camp in El Paso, a security contractor called 911, urgently asking for help, according to a recording of the call obtained by The Washington Post through a public records request.
During that call and another 911 call placed after Lunas Campos was pronounced dead, detention center employees told dispatchers the detainee had tried to hang himself — an account that appears to conflict with the medical examiner’s recent finding of a homicide while being restrained by guards.
Paul Walden, a lieutenant at the Camp East Montana detention center, called 911 at 9:37 p.m. on Jan. 3, saying that Lunas Campos had “tried to hang himself, then we put him in custody, kept going.”
EMS was dispatched for an “apparent suicide” and arrived at 9:48 p.m., according to the El Paso Fire Department’s incident report. Emergency responders were led to Lunas Campos, who “was found pulseless & apneic on the floor of his cell with 2 staff-members providing CPR.”
At 10:38 p.m., Daniel Rios, a deputy facility director, asked 911 operators to send a police detective to investigate a “suicide” that had occurred within the preceding 30 minutes. On the call, Rios said he was still on his way to the scene.
“I don’t have the details. I have none of the details. I don’t want to lie to you, you know what I mean?” Rios said on the call.
The 911 calls, which have not been previously reported, intensifies questions about how Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant with criminal convictions, died in federal custody, and how the government responded. Reports about the death have led public officials, from the mayor of El Paso to congressional Democrats, to call for a full investigation of the events before and after Lunas Campos’s death.
Last week, after initially saying little about the cause of death, the Department of Homeland Security said Lunas Campos had tried to take his own life and then died during a struggle in which “guards were trying to save him.”
Lunas Campos is the third detainee in two months to die at Camp East Montana, a giant tent encampment that the Trump administration erected last summer on an empty patch of Texas desert near the border with Mexico. Six ICE detainees have already died in custody across the country this month, according to the ICE website.
Walden hung up on a reporter after being asked about the 911 call. Rios could not be reached for comment. Akima Global Services, the company that employs guards at the facility, did not respond to request for comment. DHS also did not respond to requests for comment.
DHS has said the death is an “active investigation” but did not say which agency is looking into the incident. The mother of two of Lunas Campos’s children said she’s been contacted by FBI agents who said they are investigating the death and El Paso police said the “case falls under federal jurisdiction.”
The FBI declined to comment.
Federal standards for immigrant detention say that force may only be used against detainees “after all reasonable efforts to resolve a situation have failed.” In most cases, the use of force should be “calculated,” where staff members take time to assess possible ways to resolve the situation, the standards say.
Another detainee who said he witnessed the death, Santos Jesus Flores, said in a phone interview with The Post that he saw guards choking Lunas Campos and heard Lunas Campos repeatedly saying, “No puedo respirar” — Spanish for “I can’t breathe.”
On Wednesday, the El Paso County Office of the Medical Examiner released an autopsy listing the death as a homicidecaused by “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression,” meaning that he did not get enough oxygen because of pressure on his neck and torso. The finding of homicide does not imply intent to kill, but rather that the victim’s death was caused by another person.
Adam C. Gonzalez, deputy medical examiner for El Paso County, said in the report that Lunas Campos “was witnessed to become unresponsive while being physically restrained by law enforcement.”
“These conflicting accounts raise profound concerns about the circumstances of his death and DHS’s handling of the case,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) wrote in a letter she and other Democrats plan to send to DHS leaders next week, obtained by The Post.
Camp East Montana is the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in the nation, with more than 3,800 detainees. It is operated by a group of private contractors, under a $1.2 billion contract which says those companies “must guarantee humane treatment” of detainees and “protection from harm,” according to a copy of the document reviewed by The Post.
Lunas Campos died in the segregation unit, a section of the camp where guards are supposed to take detainees who they believe to be a danger to themselves or others. According to one of Lunas Campos’s cellmates, Antonio Frometa, detention staff took Lunas Campos there after he had become vocal and frustrated because he had not been given his medication.
The autopsy report says Lunas Campos was diagnosed with anxiety and bipolar disorder.
According to Flores, guards brought Lunas Campos, wearing handcuffs and shackles around his ankles, to the segregated housing area and tried to place him in a cell. Flores said he could see the men through his window only a few cells away. Lunas Campos stood in the hallway and resisted going into the cell, telling guards he needed his medication, Flores said.
Minutes later, the guards grabbed Lunas Campos “and choked him” as dozens of detainees looked on from their cells, Flores said.
The first 911 call, placed by Walden, contains loud background noises, including what sounds like shouting. Walden described orange vomit in Lunas Campos’s mouth. He said trained medical staff were trying to resuscitate him.
On his LinkedIn profile, Walden lists himself as a detention officer for Akima, an Alaska-based company which employs staff at several ICE facilities around the country. Akima is listed on the Camp East Montana contract as a provider of detention services, case management and secure transportation.
When Rios called 911 about 50 minutes after EMS had arrived, he said Lunas Campos had been pronounced dead. Rios said he was still en route to the scene.
“I’m gonna need a detective to go out there,” Rios said on the call.
Six days after Lunas Campos died, an internal ICE log reviewed by The Post documented a series of events about Lunas Campos’s case, noting his death, an attempt to contact his family, the notification of the Cuban Consulate and the transportation of his body by the medical examiner.
The last event logged, six days after his death, references an “immediate” use-of-force incident but provides no date details.
An “immediate use of force” is permitted by federal standards only when a detainee’s behavior constitutes a serious and immediate threat.
Aaron Schaffer, Elana Gordon, Perry Stein and Samuel Oakford contributed to this report.
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