The half-brother of Robert Fuller, a black man found hanging from a tree near a City Hall in Southern California last week, was shot and killed during an interaction Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies, according to a statement from Fuller's family lawyer.
The sheriff's department did not identify the man shot on Wednesday in Kern County, but the family's attorney, Jamon Hicks, said it was Fuller's half-brother Terron Jammal Boone.
The shooting took place around 4:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday in the city of Rosamond, the sheriff's office said in a statement. According to officials, it began as a search for "a kidnap domestic assault suspect" by the sheriff's department's Major Crimes Bureau.
"The Detectives observed and positively identified a male matching the suspect's description in a vehicle," Deputy James Nagao said in the statement.
"Detectives followed the vehicle and attempted a traffic stop," he added. "The suspect opened the front passenger door of the vehicle and engaged the Deputies by firing multiple rounds at them with a handgun."
"At that time, an Officer involved shooting occurred during which the suspect was struck several times in the upper torso," the report stated. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The female driver of the vehicle was also struck by gunfire, according to the report. She was treated at the hospital and released. A seven-year-old girl was also in the car, but was not injured.
"This afternoon I had to notify the sisters of Robert Fuller that their half-brother Terron Jammal Boone was killed by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies in Kern County," Hicks said in a statement. "At this time, until we receive all of the information, the family and their legal team doesn't have any further comment on this incident."
There is no law enforcement video available of the shooting incident, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"None of the detectives nor their vehicles were equipped with cameras, but investigators are trying to recover footage from Ring cameras and other home video systems in the area," the newspaper added.
This latest killing of a black person by law enforcement comes as national protests continue across many cities in the U.S. calling for an end to police brutality and racial injustices in the nation's criminal justice system.
It also comes as community activists in California have been applying pressure for a more transparent investigation into the death of Robert Fuller.
His body was found hanging from a tree on June 10 in Poncitlán Square in Palmdale, Calif., about 20 miles south of Rosamond, where his half-brother was shot and killed.
Los Angeles County officials originally ruled Fuller's death a suicide, before walking back those statements earlier this week.
According to Los Angeles Magazine, Los Angeles County's chief medical examiner-coroner Jonathan Lucas said Monday that officials earlier classified Fuller's death a suicide because there was no evidence indicating a homicide that were obvious at the scene.
"Initially, there wasn't any evidence or information that lead us to believe that there was anything other than a suicide," he said, according to the magazine. "But that changed, or, I should say, we felt better that we should look into it a little bit more deeply and carefully, just considering all the circumstances at play."
Another black man, Malcolm Harsch, was found hanging from a tree in the California city of Victorville on May 31.
TheTimes reported that federal agencies, including the FBI and Department of Justice Civil Rights division, are reviewing the hanging deaths.
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