TEXAS TRIBUNE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials this week reported that the death of a 55-year-old Cuban man at a detention facility in El Paso was the result of the staff’s “spontaneous use of force” to “prevent him from harming himself.” Officials quietly updated the cause of death after previously declaring last month that the man died of “medical distress.”
The finding comes weeks after the local medical examiner ruled Geraldo Lunas Campos’ death a homicide, the first such ruling for an ICE detainee’s death linked to staff in at least 15 years, according to experts. Lunas Campos became “unresponsive while being physically restrained by law enforcement,” his autopsy found, dying of asphyxia, meaning he couldn’t breathe because of pressure on his neck and chest.
In ICE’s report this week, investigators wrote that Lunas Campos, who was being detained at Camp East Montana on the Fort Bliss U.S. Army base, had a “complex medical and mental health history,” including prior treatment for tuberculosis, depression, anxiety and asthma, as well as a history of suicide attempts and “long-term psychotropic medication use.”…