ANTELOPE VALLEY, Calif. – As a pastor, Jacob Johnson looks to the bible for answers. As the vice president of the Antelope Valley NAACP he wants answers in the death of two black men found both found hanging in the last two weeks, 50 miles apart.
With Johnson’s church just 15 miles away from Palmdale City Hall, he is wondering about what the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department initially said about Robert Fuller’s hanging, calling it a suicide.
“We think that it’s irresponsible of the department to say that it was a suicide without doing a full investigation given the climate of our day,” Johnson said.
Monday morning, Sheriff Alex Villanueva and other county officials spoke out publicly about the Fuller case, claiming to have never officially called it a suicide.
“The death certificate never said suicide and we have appropriately deferred the cause and manner of death,” said L.A. Medical Examiner-Coroner, Dr. Jonathan Lucas.
But county officials did originally deem Fuller's death a suicide.
“He was hanging and there was no other information to suggest that there was foul play at the time,” Lucas said. “That’s why we were thinking in that direction early on.”
Civil rights attorney, Humberto Guizar, who is not a part of this case, believes the Sheriff’s Department made mistakes after the body was discovered by not doing more investigating.
“You know they have a forensics team, highly trained people in the Sheriff’s Department, and the homicide detectives and so forth. I don’t understand why they’re talking about it now when they should have been talking about it right after it happened,” said Guizar.
“There should have been a forensics team – a hanging especially, it’s a high profile situation of a black man.”
The lack of the initial investigation worries Pastor Johnson because of what the actual findings could ultimately be.
“If this is a lynching, the question many of us are gonna have is 'Who’s next?'” he said.
Now that an investigation is underway we may soon find the answers.
Anyone with information can contact the L.A. County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500. Anonymous tips can be left at 800-222-8477 or lacrimestoppers.org.