Description

“The Coroner’s Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence”

Presented by Terence Keel, Ph.D., an award-winning professor of human biology and society and African American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and founding director of the lab for bioCritical studies. Each year, thousands of people die during encounters with law enforcement across the United States. While a handful of cases capture national attention, most victims remain nameless, their stories untold. Dr. Terence Keel argues that many of these deaths are systematically under documented. In The Coroner's Silence, Keel investigates a troubling pattern within forensic medicine—how incomplete autopsy reports, mishandled medical documents, and critical gaps in the public record leave the full circumstances of in-custody deaths unexamined and unresolved. Through rigorous research, Keel makes the case that meaningful accountability requires more than procedural reform. It demands a fundamental reimagining of how our institutions investigate, document, and bear witness to deaths in state custody.