On June 17, a 17-year-old black teen was found dead and his body was hanging from a tree. According to the Harris County Sheriff's Department in Texas, there was no foul play detected.
Teen suicide?
A statement from the Harris County Sheriff's Department stated that the homicide investigators were able to review the surveillance cameras of the school where his body was found and they found no signs of foul play, they ruled it out as suicide.
The sheriff's department released a statement and said that patrol deputies responded to a 911 call from the Ehrhardt Elementary School, which is a part of the Klein Independent School District. It was in reference to an in-progress call-in service, according to the statement.
The statement read that the Klein Independent School Police were called to the school grounds at around 8:10 p.m. It was right after they were told by a witness that a body was found hanging from a tree in the playground area of the elementary school.
The officers immediately cut down the male and tried to save him by doing CPR, the EMS was also dispatched to the scene. Unfortunately, the 17-year-old male was pronounced dead by the medical personnel.
According to the statement, the Klein officers asked the Harris County Sheriff's Office and the Crime Scene Unit to take over the investigation after they found the deceased teen. The police stated that the deceased black male had a history of suicide attempts.
This is not the first time that a body was found hanging from a tree in Texas, just a few days ago the Houston police found a Hispanic man hanging from a tree in the Shady Acres community.
The Houston Police Chief, Art Acevedo, tweeted about the incident and wrote that the medical examiner's office has identified the Hispanic man who was found last week, and the said man also had a history of suicidal attempts. He added that there are no signs of foul play and that the evidence of the incident all points to suicide.
Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson issued a statement following the discovery of two men hanging from a tree. She states that she is outraged at the recent hangings in the district and she is calling for a federal investigation and she is requesting the Federal Bureau of Investigation to further investigate the cases.
Similar cases
Aside from the two men found hanging in Texas, there were also two black men who were found hanging from a tree in California last week. The first man was identified as Robert Fuller from Palmdale and the second one was identified as Malcolm Harsch in Victorville.
The deaths of the two men from California were also ruled out as suicide by the police department. The deaths of the black men by hanging became frequent over the past few weeks and this is amid the ongoing Black Lives Matter protest that was ignited by the death of George Floyd in the hands of the Minneapolis police officers.
Related Article: Another Lynching? Black Man Found Hanging from a Tree in Victorville, California
