Less than a month after the country has been torn apart due to racial divides and police brutality towards Black people, authorities in California are currently investigating two hangings in which the cause of deaths in both cases is questionable.
Over the weekend, 24-year old Robert Fuller’s body was found hanging from a tree around 4 am in Palmdale, CA’s City Hall area. According to homicide investigators, Fuller’s body showed “no signs of a struggle”, which led investigators to conclude he’d hung himself. City officials have pushed that Fuller has suffered from mental health issues, however, the Palmdale community isn’t satisfied with that final conclusion.
Now, news of 38-year-old Malcolm Harsch being hung in Victorville, California on May 31, ten days before Fuller, has surfaced. According to confirmed reports, Harsch was found on the morning of the 31st by San Bernardino County Sheriff deputies responding to a call of a “male subject had hung himself near a homeless encampment near Zenda Street and Seventh Street,” according to Sheriff’s spokesperson Jodi Miller.
Miller said, “A death investigation is being conducted. There were no indications at the scene that suggested foul play. The cause and manner of death are pending.”
Harsch’s family is not buying the story that the young father took his own life, In a family statement, the Harsch family said, “Malcolm had very recent conversations with his children about seeing them soon. He didn’t seem to be depressed to anyone who truly knew him. EVERYONE who knew our brother was shocked to hear that he allegedly hung himself and don’t believe it to be true as well as the people who were there when his body was discovered. The explanation of suicide does not seem plausible. There are many ways to die, but considering the current racial tension, a black man hanging himself from a tree definitely doesn’t sit well with us right now. We want justice not comfortable excuses.”