The death of a man who died while being held at the immigration detention facility in Eloy was a suicide, an autopsy report shows.
Jose Deniz-Sahagun, a 31-year-old Mexican national, was found unresponsive on May 20, two days after arriving at the facility.
On May 19, Deniz-Sahagun was evaluated for “delusional thoughts and behaviors for which he had to be restrained by correction staff,” the report released Wednesday said.
He was placed on constant watch due that day to suicidal concerns. He was removed from suicide watch May 20 and placed in a single cell during which checks by corrections staff were to occur every 15 minutes, the report from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner said.
Deniz-Sahagun is last seen at his cell door at 4:57 p.m. May 20, the report said. Then, more than 30 minutes later, about 5:33 p.m., emergency responders are seen on a video going into his cell. Efforts to revive Deniz-Sahagun failed.
Deniz-Sahagun had stuffed one of his knee-high orange socks down his throat. A small white plastic handle, possibly from a toothbrush, was inside his stomach, said Dr. Gregory Hess, the chief medical examiner.
Deniz-Sahagun tried to illegally cross the border through Douglas on May 15, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said.
He had been deported twice in the last four years. The most recent deportation was in April 2013, after the Border Patrol arrested him near Calexico, California.
At the time of his death, ICE said, Deniz-Sahagun was awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge on his pending deportation. The agency did not immediately respond to an email about the suicide.
Deniz-Sahagun is the fourth detainee nationwide to die in ICE custody in fiscal year 2015, which ends Sept. 30.
Since 2003, there have been at least 14 deaths at the Eloy center, including two other suicides in 2013. Others have died of diabetes complications, cardiac arrest and asphyxia, according to an ICE list of deaths of people in its custody.
The Mexican Consulate has been in contact with Deniz-Sahagun’s family and will inform them about the autopsy results, said Ricardo Pineda, the consul in Tucson. His office is awaiting the results of ICE’s investigation, he said.
Congressman Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., wrote U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Tuesday, requesting a thorough and public investigation into allegations of mistreatment at the Eloy Detention Center.
In the letter, Grijalva mentions Deniz-Sahagun’s death and that of another detainee who allegedly faced abusive treatment and solitary confinement before he died. ICE has denied that there has been another death at the facility, and the Medical Examiner’s Office says it has no record of another fatality at the center.
