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Report: Honduran Man Took His Life After Son Was Taken Away at U.S. Border

“They had to use physical force to take the child out of his hands,” one Border Patrol agent says.

A Honduran man distraught after being separated from his wife and child at the U.S. border killed himself in custody last month, according to newly obtained documents cited by The Washington Post. The man, identified as 39-year-old Marco Antonio Muñoz, was reportedly placed in a padded cell at a Texas jail after becoming agitated that his 3-year-old son was taken away. A Border Patrol agent cited by the Post said Muñoz “lost it.” “They had to use physical force to take the child out of his hands,” the agent was quoted as saying. Muñoz, who’d been seeking asylum with his family, was transferred to the Starr County Jail in Rio Grande City after becoming combative with Border Patrol agents. He was found laying in the center of a cell the next morning with “a piece of clothing twisted around his neck which was tied to the drainage location in the center of the cell,” according to a sheriff’s department report cited by the Post. The “suicide in custody” had not been publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security.