In the last two weeks, two Black men have been found dead, hung from trees outside civic buildings in Southern California towns just miles from one another. Malcolm Harsch was discovered on May 31 in Victorville and, on June 10, Robert Fuller was found hanging outside City Hall in the Los Angeles County suburb of Palmdale. Initially, authorities suggested that both were likely suicides, but after days of public demands for a more intensive investigation, those early statements have been walked back.
Results from an autopsy and toxicology screening have not yet been released. Investigators did confirm that no chair or stool—the type of item one might stand on to attach a noose to a high tree branch when hanging oneself—was found at the scene.
No possible motive for Fuller’s death has been established but, for some, the sight of a Black man hanging from a tree in a public square has reminded them of the Antelope Valley’s very active struggle with neo-Nazi and white supremacist activity, even within the Sheriff’s Department. The issue in the area is so bad that, in late 2019, Lancaster-Palmdale appeared on a list of “America’s most miserable cities” specifically citing the neo-Nazi gangs. The New Yorker dedicated a lengthy feature to chronicling the neo-Nazis and skinheads of the Antelope Valley.
In a lawsuit following the 2011 death of Darrell Logan Jr., an unarmed man shot 11 times by L.A. County Sheriff’s deputies, in Palmdale, his family brought forth evidence of a “neo-Nazi cop gang” within the department known as the Vikings, another group known as the Regulators, and “other gang-type cliques” of officers.
When a reporter at Monday’s briefing asked Villanueva if his department might be investigating any connection between Fuller’s death and white supremacist groups, law enforcement or civilian, he did not provide a direct answer. He did, however, bring up a 2015 settlement agreement between the U.S. Department of Justice and the LASD stemming from deputy misconduct, excessive use of force, and housing discrimination, based out of the Lancaster and Palmdale stations.
