A Black Man Was Found Hanging From a Tree--Residents Don't Buy That It Was a Suicide.

[JoeOtterbein]

Source: The Daily Beast

A 24-year-old black man was found hanging from a tree in Palmdale, California, this week, sparking a massive public outcry and demands for a more thorough investigation after officials almost immediately described it as a suicide.

Robert Fuller was found by a passerby at about 3:39 a.m. Wednesday near Palmdale City Hall in Poncitlán Square, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Homicide investigators said they had found “no signs of a struggle” and suggested Fuller had died by suicide—an assessment echoed by city officials who attributed the death to emotional despair caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Sadly, it is not the first such incident since the COVID-19 pandemic began,” city officials said in a statement offering their “sincere condolences and sympathies” to Fuller’s loved ones.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/robert-fuller-was-found-hanging-from-a-tree-residents-say-authorities-were-too-quick-to-deem-it-suicide?ref=home

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(tears)

[FirstLight]

1. Palmdale...?

Isn't that in a very white so cal area?


no way it was suicide...fucking cops should do their jobs and investigate

[kimmylavin]

9. Very.

It’s the “city” closest to my little rural town.
And it’s known for some major white supremacist activity.

I used to work a couple of blocks away from this park.
No way there aren’t cameras.

[nsd]

18. Palmdale is 58.6% Hispanic, 22.1 % non-Hispanic white, and 12.3% black.

Source: datausa.io

[BarbD]

2. So, there have been a lot of such "incidents'?

Out of all the suicide options for a young black man to kill himself, he would choose lynching?

[Igel]

16. Hanging.

You can lynch somebody with rocks.

Hanging is prototypical, but not required.

Lynching is killing by a mob that seeks to enforce their extrajudicial assumptions of guilt. It's assumed that the man at the root of the Tulsa riots would have been lynched if the police hadn't defended him against the mob (and smuggle him out of town), for instance. His guilt was presumed, there was a mob demanding justice, and the only thing that was missing from a lynching was the mob's killing the poor guy.

Lynching is, at its heart, a denial of due process fueled by a crowd demanding justice entirely on its terms. The mob demands (its) justice so it hears the accusation, assigns guilt, prescribes the sentence, and then carries it out. Laws? Mob rule.

The earliest lynchings were extrajudicial punishments, but not killing. A mob catches the allegedly guilty person, denies due process, and punishes him by tar and feathering him or burning down his house? That would have been a lynching early in the word's history. Obligatory death came decades later.

[Igel]

17. Lots? Doubtfully.

But

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-investigates-willie-andrew-jones-jr-hanging-black-man-tree-mississippi/ in 2018. Willie Andrew Jones Jr.

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-atlanta-hanging-20160708-snap-story.html in 2016. Story lists some antecedents, all of which were suspected but failed the evidence test.

For example, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/federal-authorities-investigate-death-black-man-hanging-tree-mississippi in 2015, Otis Byrd.


Oddly, I can't recall, even vaguely, an instance of a white or Latino or Asian's hanging that made the national news enough for me to turn to the old Google like happened with a couple of the links above. Were they reported and I just didn't care because they weren't black? Were they not reported? Do whites or Latinos or Asians commit suicide by hanging? I assume the answer is "not reported except maybe sometimes locally; I wouldn't have cared; suicide by hangings happen.

(But I can remember, vaguely, a number of missing white blond kids, usually girls, and one missing black kid notable mostly because he (she?) was a counterfoil to all the missing white blond kids. Just an observation, on that makes me wonder about the fears that reporters play on and how they vary.)

[KS Toronado]

3. WTF? this sounds more like satire than truth, heaven help us if it's true

[Warpy]

4. They'd better be able to produce a note

Otherwise, not a cat in hell's chance.

[hoosierspud]

7. It's common for a person who takes his life to not

Leave a suicide note although most people believe it to be a common occurrence. I agree with the poster who said to check for surveillance videos.

[Warpy]

12. That would be a help, should they exist.

His phone or computer would also provide a few clues had he been despondent to the point of suicide.

A tree at the courthouse just seems like a very odd place for it. It's much more in keeping with lynching.

[alittlelark]

5. ........ AAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH.........................

[sheshe2]

6. Bullshit!

Residents have asked Palmdale city officials to check surveillance footage from the area where Fuller was found dead, expressing incredulity at the idea he would have hanged himself right in front of City Hall and there would be no video evidence of what happened.

[mopinko]

8. whoever gave a cause of death before the autopsy should be fired.

[people]

10. How horrible for him and his family

There's no appetite by that city to find out what actually happened and I have a lot of skepticism about the Los Angeles County Sheriffs. How sad.

[SunSeeker]

11. Palmdale is a deep red pocket in California. No fucking way a black man lynched himself.

This is a scandal, not a suicide. How the Sheriff's office cavalierly suggested this was a suocide needs to be investigated.

[Stuart G]

13. This story is in the L.A.Times..at link below:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-12/investigation-ongoing-after-young-black-man-found-hanging-from-tree-in-palmdale

The discovery of a 24-year-old Black man hanging from a tree near Palmdale City Hall this week has sparked alarm in the Antelope Valley as investigators try to determine whether his death was caused by suicide or if foul play was involved.

A passerby spotted the man’s body at 3:39 a.m. Wednesday in the 38300 block of 9th Street East, according to authorities. Emergency personnel responded and determined that the man — identified as Robert Fuller — was dead, authorities said.

Lt. Kelly Yagerlener of the Los Angeles County medical examiner-coroner’s office said the death was initially reported as an apparent suicide, but a decision on the cause of death is deferred pending an investigation. A full autopsy is planned.

“Investigators have been in contact with Mr. Fuller’s family and are continuing their investigation into the circumstances surrounding Mr. Fuller’s death,” Palmdale officials wrote in a statement
__________________________________________________________________________________

Palmdale is a suburb of Los Angeles...located about 25 miles northeast of L.A. This is real. This story is at multiple locations on the internet.

[onetexan]

14. OMG why wasn't this all over the MSM news?? Horrific!!

[Lulu KC]

19. It's now on first page of cnn.com n/t

[riversedge]

15. Time will tell us the truth.