According to an arrest report from Dec. 16, 35-year-old Kevin Barnes was seen on surveillance camera while attacking Geffrard. The cellmate is accused of placing Geffard in a chokehold for two minutes, then repeatedly stomping on his head and torso while he lay unconscious and bleeding. A deputy arrived 20 minutes after the attack and removed Barnes from the cell. Geffrard was pronounced dead on Dec. 31 at Broward General Hospital.

Geffrard’s family and representatives issued a letter to Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony, asking him to release all the footage of the assault. Loved ones are also demanding to know why the staff was so slow to respond to the attack. In a statement to WPLG, Tony’s office said they have opened an investigation and four staff members are “currently on administrative investigative leave with pay.”

According to police, Barnes told deputies that he was upset at Geffrard for being gay. The 35-year-old also said he was angry because of Geffrard’s lack of cleanliness.

“I thought he was safer in there than in the streets,” Marcia Irving, Geffrard’s mother, said in an interview with WPLG. “Somebody beat my kid up real bad, and then he kept doing it, he kept after he was out.”

Geffrard was arrested in 2023 after being accused of grand theft auto and parole violation, the Miami Herald reported. The court ruled in November that Geffrard is “incompetent” to face a judge because of mental illness. Public defender Graham Weekes, who is representing Geffrard, told The Herald that “healthy individuals are finding themselves dying or being neglected medically in the jail.”

“Something’s going on in the jail that is creating this repeated pattern,” he added.

According to Weekes, nearly 20 people have died in the Broward County jail since 2021.

As The Advocate reported, Geffrard leaves behind a 10-year-old child.