The death of 55-year-old detainee Geraldo Lunas Campos in a Texas immigration center has been ruled a homicide. An autopsy says he died from asphyxia caused by pressure on his neck and chest. This happened during an incident involving guards, and not from natural causes.
What the autopsy report says about the cause of death
The autopsy report says Lunas Campos died after pressure on his neck and chest cut off his breathing. Independent forensic pathologist Dr. Lee Ann Grossberg said this kind of death happens when someone presses on the body in a way that blocks normal breathing. The report also shows he had bipolar disorder and had depression medication in his system, supporting claims that he had been asking for his medicine.
At first, the Department of Homeland Security said only that staff had seen him “in distress” and did not explain what caused his death. Later, an employee from the medical examiner’s office told a relative that the office would likely list the death as a homicide, a detail The Washington Post first reported.
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After that, Homeland Security said Lunas Campos had tried to harm himself and that guards were trying to save him, and officials repeated this claim even after the autopsy was released. However, the official medical report still lists the cause of death as asphyxia from pressure on the neck and torso and the manner of death as homicide.
What witnesses inside the detention center claim happened
Two detainees at Camp East Montana say they witnessed what happened to Geraldo Lunas Campos. One of them, Santos Jesus Flores, said guards choked him to death. Another detainee, Antonio Ascon Frometa, also said he saw the struggle. Both men said in phone interviews that they watched guards use force against Lunas Campos.
They also said that before the incident, Lunas Campos had been asking for his medication and was in distress, not acting violently. According to them, he needed medical help at the time.
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Both Flores and Ascon Frometa have criminal convictions, but their accounts match key parts of the autopsy report. The report says someone applied pressure to Lunas Campos’s body in a way that stopped his breathing.
The government has taken steps to deport both men, which worried the victim’s family and their lawyers. A federal judge, David Briones, has now ordered officials not to deport them for now, saying their removal would make it harder to obtain their testimony.
How the case has unfolded and why officials now face a homicide ruling
Officials placed Geraldo Lunas Campos, a Cuban man, in solitary confinement shortly before he died at the Camp East Montana detention center. The government says he died during an interaction with guards. At first, officials gave very little information and said only that staff had seen him in distress, without mentioning any use of force or breathing problems.
As more details came out, the situation became less clear. A recorded phone call from the medical examiner’s office suggested early on that officials might rule the death a homicide. Later, the government said Lunas Campos had tried to take his own life and that guards were trying to stop him.
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The autopsy report is now the main official medical record in the case. It states that the cause of death was asphyxia due to compression of the neck and torso, and that the manner of death was homicide. This does not decide who is legally responsible, but it explains, in medical terms, how he died.
Lunas Campos’s family is trying to understand what happened in his final moments and wants witnesses to be able to speak in court. For now, the known facts come from the autopsy report, statements by government officials, and accounts from other detainees. The case has drawn attention because it involves a death inside an immigration detention center, where people are held under government care, and the official ruling means the death was not natural or caused by illness alone.