Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Come on. >> Come on, man. >> Come on. Come on, buddy. >> A driver is caught smuggling seven people into the country, arrested without incident, and processed like a hundred other arrests at this checkpoint. 4 hours later, the same agents who booked him are on the floor of his cell screaming at him to wake up. February 17th, 2024. Approximately 6:45 in the evening, a red tractor trailer pulls into the US Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 35, about 25 mi north of Laredo, Texas. A K9 alerts to the truck. Agents search the cab and find seven undocumented people hidden inside. The driver, a 43-year-old US citizen, later identified as Courtney Trel Davis, is arrested. By 6:49, Davis and the seven people from the truck are brought to the checkpoints detention area. An agent searches him, removes the drawstrings from his pants and jacket. Standard safety procedure, then hands the jacket back. At 657, [music] he's placed alone in cell 103. What follows on camera looks almost mundane. [music] The ordinary mechanics of an arrest that happens at this checkpoint all the time. Do >> you have anything else in the tractor? >> Mm-m. >> No other personal property in there. >> Uh >> electronics, [music] important religious items, pictures of kids, family members. >> I got a lot of mail. All >> a lot of like mail. >> Mail. Okay. All right. Take off the sweater. So, what do you have the ankle monitor on? >> Huh? What do you have an under? >> Uh, it ain't house arrest, but uh me and my girl got it to her and I ain't supposed to go around that area. >> Okay. All right. I'm going to have you stand on the wall real quick and do a quick >> He asks about calling his mother. An agent tells him it might be possible later, but it'll have to be monitored [music] on speaker phone. >> Not right now. Um, who do you need to call? >> Like my mom. >> Your mom. Okay. Um, we'll see. Okay. It's You're not obligated to a phone call, so we'll see how if we have time. Uh where's your mom at? We have to make a few phone calls um to other agencies and stuff like that. Uh you'll probably be you're going to be [music] in custody at least for the weekend. Okay. Um we're going to submit your case to the courthouse, either we are or HSI. Um and they're going to determine whether it's accepted or declined. >> [music] >> uh for prosecution for the for the charges for alien smuggling. >> He's fingerprinted [music] just after 7. At 7:41, he asks again about the call. This time, an agent walks him to a phone, but the attempt falls apart almost immediately. He can't hear her. She can't hear him. He asks the agent to just talk to her directly instead. >> Yeah. Just let us know uh when when you're ready and we'll let you call her. Okay. Okay. >> There's not even a phone in there. Oh, there's a phone right here. >> Right here. Talk to my phone. >> No. No. Here. Let's go back over there. Okay. If you're not going to make the phone call, then >> he's returned to his cell at 7:46. The call unfinished. At 8:15, agents read him his Miranda rights and begin an interview. 4 minutes in, he asks for an attorney and it ends. According to CBP's own account, right after that, he asks an agent a specific question who he could talk to if he had thoughts of suicide. The agent asks if he's having those thoughts right now. He says no. He's offered someone to talk to. He declines, says he's [music] fine. The agent tells a supervisor anyway, and Davis is put on a live camera feed for monitoring. At 8:29, he finally gets his call through to his mother. He's returned to his cell. Around 9, agents walk him back out to the truck to grab more of his belongings, then bring him back in. Then, for the next hour and a half, nothing in the public record shows what happens inside that cell. CBP later acknowledges that the checkpoint's fixed camera system [music] wasn't fully working that night. So, there's no continuous recording of cell 103 during this stretch, only what happens before it and what happens after. At 10:39, two agents walk up to the cell to serve him paperwork. The first one opens the door. Davis is unresponsive, suspended off the floor. His jacket, the one they gave back to him after removing the drawstring, is tied around a privacy partition and around his neck. The second agent screams for help. He [ __ ] told me his jacket. >> CBP says 21 seconds pass between the door opening [music] and agents getting the jacket off him. Then it's every agent on scene all at once. >> Hey, wake up. Wake up. >> Wake up, man. >> A supervisor starts [music] CPR at 10:41. The AED goes on 2 minutes later. going by. >> Come on. Come on. >> All right, guys. >> You guys have a mask. All right. 24. >> 2 3 4 5 16 8 10 12 13 14 16 17 18 19 20 22 23 24 26 27 28 30 [clears throat] Come on. 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 12 14 15 16 18 19 20 23 17 18. >> Stay calm. Follow these instructions. Make sure 911 is called now. Begin by exposing patients bare chest. Remove or cut clothing if needed. >> When patient test remove the white square package from lid of AED 3 open white package across dotted line and remove pad >> one of the white pads completely from blue plastic. Begin pulling from the tab corner [music] there on this side where you put it. Firmly place the pad without the blue plastic or spare chest exactly as shown on pad. This pad can be placed on either of the two locations as shown on 6. Next white pad from the blue plastic. >> Place the second pad on the other location exactly and not touch the patient. [music] >> Analyzing heart rhythm. Please wait. He's on the way. >> Do not touch the patient. >> Analyzing heart rhythm. Please wait. >> Shock not advised. It is now safe to touch the patient. If needed, perform CPR as instructed. >> Place heel of one hand on center of chest between nipples. Place heel of other hand directly on top of first hand. >> Lean over patient with elbows straight. Press the patient's chest down rapidly, one/ird the depth of chest. Then release. [music] Start CPR. Press press. >> They keep going for almost 20 minutes. One agent on chest compressions, another managing his airway, another running oxygen [music] until Angel Care Ambulance EMS takes over. At 11:01, he's driven to [music] doctor's hospital of Laredo. At 11:52 that night, he's pronounced dead. The Web County Medical Examiner's Office performs an autopsy 2 days later. Web County Sheriff's Office, the Medical Examiner, and CBP's Office of Professional Responsibility all investigate. No complete autopsy finding or final investigative conclusion is ever made public in the sources available. The seven people found in his truck are interviewed and reportedly say they never spoke with him. Beyond that, what happens to them isn't part of the public record either. Davis is never prosecuted for anything. [music] He dies in a cell before any court ever sees his case. CBP posts the footage more than a month later on March 21st. 18 minutes and 53 seconds built from the body cameras of agents who spent a night processing a routine arrest and then spent 20 minutes on the floor of a detention cell trying to undo what four hours in custody had already Fun.