At approximately 8:00 am on Sunday, September 20, 2026, The DMV Live, a social media-based local news page, reported that a man was found hanging from a tree in Westphalia, Maryland, a city in Prince George’s (PG) County, Maryland. For several hours, The DMV Live was the only news source reporting the incident. The site shared a recording of PG County police dispatch noting the incident.
Later in the day, other social media pages shared a disturbingly graphic image from the scene of the investigation. The image, which appeared to be a screenshot from surveillance footage, showed a man wearing a lime green shirt hanging from a tree while two uniformed police officers were standing nearby, assessing the situation. Several commenters argued the image looked fake and like it was created or enhanced by AI.
Almost twelve hours later, at 7:11 pm, the Prince George’s County Police Department posted an official statement on its Facebook page. The Police allege that the initial autopsy report ruled that the death was self-inflicted. Community advocates are coordinating town hall meetings and arguing for a more thorough investigation. J. Wyndal Gordon, a Maryland-based Civil Rights Attorney, made a statement after attending a community meeting on the death, stating,
“A search warrant for the Crane Service Company building should be sought immediately. The location reportedly has limited or no surveillance coverage, contains valuable equipment, and is operated by a company currently facing a federal race-discrimination lawsuit alleging extreme, pervasive, and deeply entrenched discriminatory conduct. Those circumstances do not establish criminal involvement on their own but they make it imperative that investigators preserve and examine all potentially relevant evidence before it can be altered, lost, or destroyed. “
This death is sadly just one in a string of underreported cases of Black people hanging from trees. In many cases, the individual cases received little to no mainstream media attention and were only covered by local news sites and independent journalists. According to Capital B News, there have been over 10 reported hanging incidents in the past year. In almost all of the cases, the initial autopsy has ruled the death as self-inflicted. Family members of the deceased and advocates have argued that this is not the case, leading to a public rallying cry of “Black People Don’t Hang Themselves from Trees”.
Independent journalist Monique, who goes by the social media handle @theBlackbeltdaily, is documenting recently reported cases and has created an interactive map that tracks hanging incidents from across the United States. You can learn more and read the cases at strangefruitmap.com
Black Belt Daily’s map is reminiscent of reporting by journalists such as Ida B. Wells during the segregation era of the United States. In 1895, Wells worked with other Black journalists and advocates to create the Red Record of Lynching. The reports documented hundreds of cases from across the country and led to the introduction of the first Anti-lynching bill in 1900 in the U.S. House of Representatives. Unfortunately, the bill did not pass until 122 years later, when President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law in 2022.
Reporting by independent journalists can change the world and protect communities. Checktheweather.net will continue to follow this story and share localized news from around the world.
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