Dozens of photographs and audio recordings from 911 calls obtained by Scripps News are providing new details about a detained immigrant's death classified as a homicide.
Geraldo Lunas Campos, 55, died Jan. 3 during a scuffle with guards inside the Camp East Montana detention center. It is the largest immigrant lockup in the country. Acquisition Logistics LLC, a private company run out of a single-family home in Virginia, built the soft-sided detention center last year under a $1.3 billion contract awarded by Immigration and Customs and Enforcement.
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The company utilizes private security guards and an array of other subcontractors, never identified publicly, to operate the center located on the Fort Bliss U.S. Army post in El Paso, Texas.
After Campos died, the Department of Homeland Security issued a short statement that did not provide a cause of death.
"He was pronounced deceased at 10:16 p.m. after experiencing medical distress," the statement said. "His cause of death is under investigation."
Then in a surprise turn, an autopsy by the El Paso medical examiner determined Campos' death was a homicide, a result of "asphyxia due to neck and torso compression."
"Campos was witnessed to become unresponsive while being physically restrained by law enforcement," the autopsy report states.
DHS then provided an updated explanation of the death, saying it occurred after a suicide attempt.
"Campos violently resisted the security staff and continued to take his life," a statement to Scripps News attributed to an unnamed DHS spokesman said. "During the ensuing struggle, Campos stopped breathing and lost consciousness."
Scripps News submitted an open records request for all of the photographs taken by El Paso authorities who arrived at the scene to investigate Campos' death.
They show used medical equipment strewn about a jail cell surrounding a body covered in a white sheet. A defibrillator sits atop a metal bed frame without a mattress.
A red detainee shirt and handcuffs are at the side.
Campos' body has dried blood on his face and arm and defibrillator pads still attached to the chest.
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Scripps News shared the photos with two forensic pathologists, including Dr. Mary Jumbelic, who has examined dozens of deaths that occurred in prisons and jails.
"The medical examiner came to a conclusion that there was asphyxiation from neck and chest compression and the photos show evidence of that," Jumbelic said.
The pictures show injuries in line with homicide, she said, but they also could be wounds that occurred as a result of suffocation by suicide.
"It becomes critical to know a minute-by-minute play of what happened from the moment the decedent interacts with law enforcement until the moment they are found dead," Jumbelic said. Interviews with witnesses are especially important, she added. "Some people lie, some don't. You have to weigh it all. A death in custody requires the utmost scrutiny."
A key question is how Campos could have caused the fatal injuries himself with guards present.
In a 911 call obtained by Scripps News, a guard inside the detention center tells a dispatcher that Campos was in handcuffs during at least some of the altercation while he was still alive.
"He tried to hang himself and then we put him in cuffs and he kept going," says the caller, who identifies himself as a lieutenant.
In another 911 recording, the caller sounds uncertain about what was unfolding.
"I believe he just hung himself," says the man on the phone who identifies himself as Daniel Rios, deputy facilities director.
"So, hung himself, okay," says the dispatcher.
"I have none of the details," the man responds. "I don't want to lie to you, you know what I mean?"
There is also an account from a fellow detainee whose testimony is included in a legal document filed by Campos' family in federal court ahead of a possible wrongful death lawsuit. That detainee says the guards "choked him to death."
According to his testimony, trouble began when Campos refused an order to go into a segregation cell without first getting his medication.
The court filing says the fellow detainee "witnessed guards choking Mr. Lunas Campos and heard Mr. Lunas Campos repeatedly saying, 'no puedo respirar' meaning 'I cannot breathe' in Spanish."
The same day the witness spoke out publicly about what he saw, he says the government took steps to deport him.
A federal judge blocked his deportation for now and that of a second detainee who reported seeing Campos struggle with guards.
The death is casting fresh scrutiny on Camp East Montana, a spread of tent buildings in the desert projected to hold as many as 5,000 immigrant detainees for ICE.
As part of the ongoing "ICE Inc." Scripps News investigation of private sector profits being made from immigration enforcement, Scripps News traveled to Camp East Montana in October and spoke to detainees who reported a lack of hygiene and medical care.
Even members of Congress who have oversight power over ICE are not sure who is working inside the center. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes Camp East Montana, posted a video online sounding an alarm about conditions inside after a recent unannounced visit.
"What is absolutely clear is that the private company running this immigration detention facility is getting worse, not better," Escobar said. "Making their profits while not delivering on what the American taxpayers are supposed to be getting."
Leaders at Acquisition Logistics LLC did not respond to requests by Scripps News to respond to claims about the care of detainees at Camp East Montana.
Campos' death has also cast attention on Akima Global Services, a company based in Alaska that a court filing by the Campos family says "employs the facility's guards."
Job postings show Akima hiring security positions in El Paso and a LinkedIn profile with the same name of the lieutenant who identified himself in a 911 call to report Campos' death shows he has been a detention officer at Akima Global Services in El Paso since September 2025.
Contracting records show Akima Global Services has won more than $1 billion worth of ICE government contracts over the years.
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A 2024 inspector general's report noted Akima provided "detention and transportation services" at the Krome ICE detention center in Miami. That report found staff at Krome "did not comply with use of force standards for several incidents," citing occurrences when a detainee was put into a chokehold and when guards used pepper spray on detainees who weren't posing a threat, including spraying a detainee through a slot outside a cell door.
Akima Global Services did not reply to multiple requests for comment from Scripps News. DHS has repeatedly said detainees receive comprehensive medical care at all detention centers.
Campos was one of three immigrants to die at Camp East Montana in a six-week period including a Nicaraguan national who DHS says died from an apparent suicide. The autopsy on his body was performed by the U.S. Army instead of the county medical examiner who investigated Campos' death. The public affairs office at the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System did not answer why the autopsy was not performed by the county.
Last year the Texas ACLU issued a report documenting claims of excessive use of force by guards at Camp East Montana. Detainees marked diagrams of bodies to show injuries they say they suffered at the hands of guards.
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In one case, a 19-year-old detainee says officers blocked a security camera before violently grabbing his groin and beating him.
"This is something that we had warned about," said Savannah Kumar, staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas. "The facility is at a breaking point with individuals being beaten by officers and being deprived of the medical care that they need. And so now to see that there have been three deaths at this facility is deeply concerning."
