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Thread: Robert L. Fuller (24) found dead by hanging

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    Robert L. Fuller (24) found dead by hanging

    https://abc7.com/society/palmdale-de...-hall/6245421/

    PALMDALE, Calif. (KABC) -- Authorities say the body of a young man was found hanging from a tree early Wednesday morning in Palmdale.

    Around 3:40 A.M, a person driving by noticed a man hanging from a tree near 9th Street and E. Ave Q-10 near City Hall, according to a news release from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

    First responders from a nearby fire station responded to the scene and determined the man was dead. The man was later identified as 24-year-old Robert L. Fuller, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

    Authorities said although an investigation is underway, "it appears Mr. Fuller, tragically, committed suicide."

    A full autopsy is expected "in the immediate future," according to the news release.

    Authorities said they have been in contact with Fuller's family and continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding his death.

    Anyone with information was asked to call the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500.

    No additional information was immediately available.
    Robert Fuller found dead near Palmdale City hall.

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    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...h-invetigation

    The FBI and the California attorney general’s office will monitor the investigation into the hanging death of a Black man in the south of the state, in one of two cases that have resurfaced fears of lynchings during a time of racial tensions and mistrust of law enforcement in the country.

    Robert Fuller, 24, was found hanging from a tree near Palmdale city hall in the early hours of 10 June. The county medical examiner labeled the preliminary cause of death as suicide pending a full autopsy. But the office deferred that decision after community members demanded a full investigation in a contentious news briefing late last week.

    Over the weekend, hundreds took to the streets in protest, demanding attention for the case.


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    “Robert Fuller was a young man in the prime of his life and his death is obviously very painful to many people,” said the Los Angeles county sheriff, Alex Villanueva, in a news conference on Monday. “It is in our interest to make sure we leave no rock unturned.”

    The attorney general’s office will provide a monitor to review the sheriff department’s investigation, and the FBI’s civil rights division will also be keeping an eye on the findings, he said.

    At the same Monday news briefing where Villanueva announced the involvement of the attorney general’s office, a Los Angeles county sheriff homicide captain, Kent Wagner, said that nothing was found at the scene “other than the rope that was used to hang the victim and the contents of his pockets as well as a backpack that he was wearing”.

    The chief county medical examiner, Jonathan Lucas, defended his office’s initial finding, stating that “initially, there wasn’t any evidence or information that led us to believe that there was anything other than a suicide”.

    “We felt better that we should look into it a little bit more carefully and deeply, just considering all the circumstances at play,” Lucas said.

    At Saturday’s rally, Fuller’s sister, Diamond Alexander, told the crowd that “everything that they’ve been telling us has not been right”. “My brother was not suicidal,” she said. “My brother was a survivor.”

    Meanwhile, the family members of a 38-year-old man who died on 31 May in Victorville, California, are also raising questions about officials’ account of their relative’s death. Malcolm Harsch’s body was discovered 50 miles from Palmdale, hanging from a tree in front of the Victorville public library in San Bernardino county.

    Harsch had been living at a nearby homeless encampment, the San Bernardino county sheriff’s department said in a statement. Encampment residents had cut him down and were rendering aid to him when department personnel arrived. The sheriff’s department “did not recover any evidence to suggest foul play” at the scene.

    Harsch’s family feared that the coroner’s office, which did not conduct an autopsy until 12 days after his body was discovered, will dismiss his death as a suicide.

    “Malcom Harsch was 6 ft 3in tall and was found with blood on his shirt, hung by a USB cord, just 4 hours after he was reportedly stopped by a Victorville police officer!” Harsch’s sister Harmonie Harsch posted on Facebook. “THIS WAS NOT A SUICIDE!”

    A petition being circulated by the family notes that “during such a heightened time with the Black Lives Matter movement, there is reason to believe that Malcolm’s death was a lynching”.

    “As most of us are in Ohio, we weren’t able to physically go to the location where he was found dead but did speak to a few people who were around at the time of the discovery,” the family said in a statement. “We were told that his 6 foot 3 inches long body wasn’t even dangling from the tree.”

    The San Bernardino sheriff’s department is also “working in cooperation” with the attorney general’s office, according to the department.

    Southern California has had a long documented problem with white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, and recently has been experiencing a rash of anti-Black incidents among its youth. Palmdale was the subject of a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice’s civil rights unit for purportedly targeting Black people with “discriminatory enforcement” of the federal housing choice voucher program.

    Villanueva said his office was listening and hearing the concerns of the community.

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    https://abc7.com/society/officials-r...icide/6309572/

    PALMDALE, Calif. -- A police investigation confirmed suicide was the cause of death of a Black man found hanging from a tree in a Southern California city park last month, authorities said Thursday.

    The investigation revealed Robert Fuller, 24, suffered from mental illness and took his own life early on June 10 in a park near City Hall in Palmdale, a community of about 150,000 people north of Los Angeles, sheriff's Commander Chris Marks said.

    At the time the body was found, deputies found no evidence of a crime and an autopsy conducted the next day resulted in an initial finding of suicide.

    That finding outraged Fuller's family, who said he was an upbeat person and wouldn't have taken his own life. They said authorities were too quick to dismiss the possibility of a crime. They hired an attorney who said an independent autopsy would be conducted, and the FBI and state attorney general's office pledged to monitor the investigation.

    The case came in the midst of intense protests over police brutality following the police killing of death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

    Following Fuller's death, more than 1,000 people attended a peaceful protest and memorial around the tree where his body was found. His family and friends described him as a peacemaker who loved music and video games, and mostly stayed to himself.

    He had gone to a Black Lives Matter protest days before he died, the Los Angeles Times reported.
    A week after Fuller's death, his half-brother, Terron J. Boone, was fatally shot by Los Angeles sheriff's deputies. Police say Boone opened fire on deputies as they were about to arrest him on charges that he beat his girlfriend and held her captive for nearly a week. He died at the scene, where a handgun was found.
    Fuller was the second Black man recently found hanged in Southern California. Malcolm Harsch, a 38-year-old homeless man, was found in a tree on May 31 in Victorville, a desert city in San Bernardino County east of Palmdale.

    Publicity surrounding Fuller's case prompted Harsch's family to seek further investigation of his death.

    Police were able to obtain surveillance footage from a vacant building near where Harsch's body was found that "confirmed the absence of foul play," according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. The family was shown the video and said they accepted the finding of suicide.

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    Robert Fuller's Death Has Officially Been Declared A Suicide

    Authorities in California on Thursday said the official cause of death for Robert Fuller, a 24-year-old Black man whose body was found hanging from a tree in a public park last month, was suicide.

    His death drew national attention after his family voiced suspicion about the suspected cause of death. But a Los Angeles County medical examiner has officially ruled it to be a suicide following an investigation by the sheriff's department.

    "This event drew a lot of media concern, community concern," LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva told reporters at a press briefing on Thursday. "And the timing of it, in the wake of the civil unrest and all that?s transpired across the nation, it brought a lot of attention based on the past history of our nation and the rather odd manner in which this death occurred."

    "We left no stone uncovered," he added.

    Fuller was found dead at Poncitl?n Square across from Palmdale City Hall at 3:39 a.m. on June 10. Amid the Black Lives Matter protests sweeping the US, his family said they were suspicious of early findings that he had killed himself.

    "We really want to find out the truth of what really happened," sister Diamond Alexander said at a rally several days after Fuller's body was discovered. "Everything that they've been telling us has not been right. ... My brother was not suicidal. He wasn't."

    The FBI and Department of Justice had said they would review Fuller's death, as well as that of another Black man, Malcolm Harsch, whose body had also also found hanging from a tree about 50 miles away 10 days earlier.

    Los Angeles County Sheriff's Commander Chris Marks said Thursday that an investigation found Fuller had received extensive treatment for mental health issues, including hearing voices telling him to kill himself. He had also been hospitalized for suicidal ideation and depression.

    Detectives found Fuller's EBT card had been used a month earlier to buy a rope from a Dollar Tree store ? the same type of rope used in the suicide.


    There were no signs of a struggle at the park, nor did Fuller have any defensive wounds indicating he had tried to fight off an attacker, Marks said.

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