Robert Fuller, one of two Black men found dead hanging from trees in Southern California a month ago, committed suicide, an investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has concluded.
The 24-year-old Fuller was found hanging at a park near Palmdale City Hall on June 10.
A more thorough investigation was ordered after heated protests and when family members expressed outrage because authorities quickly determined the cause of death.
Family members maintain it was unimaginable to them that Fuller would take his own life, but Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said at a Thursday news conference that Fuller had a history of mental illness and suicidal tendencies.
New details
Sheriff’s Cmdr. Chris Marks outlined three hospitalizations since 2017 in which Fuller told doctors he was considering taking his own life, according to The Associated Press. He was last admitted in November, when he was being treated for depression at a hospital in Nevada and “disclosed that he did have a plan to kill himself,” Marks said Thursday.
Marks also said the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department investigated an incident in February in which Fuller “allegedly tried to light himself on fire.”
Federal officials with the FBI, U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division are reportedly monitoring the investigation.
Last month, after Fuller’s body was reported by a passerby in the Palmdale park, deputies reported finding no evidence of a crime at the scene. An autopsy conducted the next day resulted in an initial finding of suicide.
A week after Fuller’s death, his half-brother, Terron J. Boone, was fatally shot by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, according to reports. Police said 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, reports said. He died at the scene, where a handgun was found.
Other hanging deaths
Fuller was among at least five Black and Hispanic Americans found hanged in three states across the nation as racial tensions festered in the weeks after George Floyd’s death. Just 10 days before, and 53 miles from where Fuller was found, authorities discovered the body of 38-year-old Malcolm Harsch hanging from a tree in Victorville on May 31.
In Manhattan, New York, 27-year-old Dominique Alexander was found hanging from a tree at Fort Tryon Park on June 9. The state medical examiner has ruled his death a suicide.
A Black 17-year-old boy was found hanged outside an elementary school in Houston on June 24.
Two days earlier, Houston police found a Hispanic man hanged outside a store in the community of Shady Acres.
‘People are on edge’
The sudden spate of hangings fueled fear and suspicions about the possibility of lynchings, but officials have so far ruled every case a suicide.
News reports about the hangings also alarmed U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who told FOX 26 Houston at the time that she believed “there could be more to the story after an eerie pattern of recent suicides where Black men were found hanging from trees.”
“People are on edge. They are nervous,” she said. “This is a troubling, a challenging time for us. It is shocking in our community, and no death in that form should go uninvestigated, so it will be my effort since it occurred in the 18th Congressional District so I will make sure it is investigated thoroughly,” she said.
Another Black man found
Since The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last reported about the deaths June 24, another Black man — 20-year-old Amani Kildea — was found hanging from a tree June 28 in Morristown, New Jersey, according to reports.
His death has also been ruled a suicide, although a Change.org petition is calling for further investigation.
Meanwhile, the Fuller family attorney said an independent autopsy would be conducted.
Fuller’s 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.
Racism in community
Racism has plagued the desert city of Palmdale for years, the AP reported. Community members have described seeing Confederate flags in the city and wider Antelope Valley, and residents of color have been blamed for crime and gang problems.
The sheriff’s department has also contributed to the racial tension: Five years ago, the county reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding accusations that deputies had harassed and discriminated against Black people and Latinos in Palmdale and nearby Lancaster.
As recently as September, a photo circulated on social media of four elementary school teachers smiling and holding a noose. While an investigator concluded the teachers apparently were not motivated by racism, they were “ignorant, lacked judgment, and exhibited a gross disregard for professional decorum in a school setting.”
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Palmdale and had asked the attorney general to look into Fuller’s death, said she is now waiting for the state’s “completed assessment.”
There is no federal law against lynching.
Facts about suicide
Suicide is the 10th-leading cause of death in the United States, according to data by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
On average, 132 Americans die by suicide each day. In 2018, 48,344 Americans died by suicide out of 1.4 million attempts, the agency states on its website. The rate of suicide is highest in middle-aged white men, accounting for more than 69% of suicide deaths in 2018.
Black and Hispanic men only account for 5% of suicide deaths, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The most common method was by firearm, followed by suffocation and poisoning.
The phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.
— Information provided by The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
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