Video shows Malcolm Harsch of Victorville was not lynched, but hanged himself

A Black man whose hanging death in Victorville on May 31 prompted concerns that he had been lynched actually died by suicide, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said Friday, June 19.

Sheriff’s officials played for reporters a video from a nearby vacant building that showed Malcolm Harsch, 38, wrapping a blue electronics cable around his neck, tying the ends to a tree limb and then letting himself fall.

The tree, rustling for several minutes before it became still, was adjacent to the tents where he and a former girlfriend lived in a dirt field, at Circle and Victor drives.

Harsch had been on suicide watch in two of his recent bookings in San Bernardino County jails on suspicion of minor crimes, Sgt. Steve Allen said.

Then, on May 31 at about 3:15 a.m., a deputy stopped to question Harsch, who was seen walking down a street, shouting to nobody in particular. The deputy asked Harsch why he had blood on his shirt, according to an audiotape played for reporters. Harsch said he had cut his hand. He told the deputy he was walking away from someone.

The deputy checked Harsch’s name against the criminal warrants database and let Harsch go on his way.

Just past dawn, Harsch and his girlfriend broke up amid mutual allegations of infidelity. “I’m going to make one of your homeboys my new boyfriend,” Allen said she told investigators.

Harsch and the woman argued, and the video showed Harsch throwing donuts at her tent.

Minutes later, with the woman still in her tent and another transient apparently watching, Harsch hanged himself.

It was just after 6 a.m. No one summoned help for Harsch until just after 7 a.m., when the woman emerged from the tent, grabbed a man’s phone and called 911, Allen said. Before medics arrived, other transients pulled Harsch down from the tree and ran to the nearby Victory Outreach church to get assistance. Two people from the church performed CPR on Harsch for 15 minutes, Allen said.

Harsch was pronounced dead at the scene. The coroner’s official finding of the cause of death is pending the results of a toxicology test.

Harsch’s brother, Ft. Irwin soldier D’Avery Richardson, viewed the video at the Victorville sheriff’s station Thursday and showed it via Zoom to his two sisters in Ohio, Allen said. Richardson was located after Harsch mentioned him in a social media post early this year.

A spokesman for the family issued a statement on Friday.

“On behalf of the family of Malcolm Harsch unfortunately it seems he did take his own life,” said the spokesman, Najee Ali.

“The Victorville Police Department officials released new video evidence to family members,” Ali said. “The family wants to sincerely thank everyone for their support and prayers.”

Allen said the family was ok with officials showing the video to reporters.

Harsch, who family members said was an aspiring rapper and artist, left Ohio about 14 years ago. Allen said there were warrants for his arrest and that he owed child support there. Allen said he doesn’t know why Harsch wound up in Victorville.

Authorities initially said no foul play was suspected in Harsch’s death. But family members and others were skeptical. Roughly 200 people gathered outside Victorville City Hall on Tuesday to demand a thorough investigation and police accountability for using deadly force in other cases.

Word of the blood on Harsch’s shirt led some people to conclude he had been slain. Allen said people in Victorville called the Harsch family in Ohio with some “pretty outlandish allegations.”

Harsch’s death came a week before another Black man, Robert Fuller, was found dead near Poncitlán Square, just east of Palmdale City Hall. Fuller’s death was also a hanging and was initially described by officials as a suspected suicide. Coroner’s investigators have yet to rule on a final cause of death pending the investigation and toxicology results.

In a news conference on Monday, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said there wasn’t any evidence the deaths were linked, but that his detectives would talk with San Bernardino County detectives.

The investigations into what some people worry were lynchings came amid protests nationwide about racial and social justice after the May 25 death of a Black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis police custody. The four officers involved in the arrest were fired and charged with crimes.

Allen said investigators planned to do a large-scale probe even if protesters had not demanded one because there were reports of blood on Harsch’s shirt. Those turned out to be spots of his own blood, Allen said a DNA test confirmed. The case binder that detectives thumbed through Friday was an inch thick, and they predicted the size could double.

The Sheriff’s Department does not normally share so much information about a suicide, Allen said, but did so in this case because of public concerns.

“What I’m trying to prevent is any violent protests in the name of Malcolm,” he said.