THE CORONER’S SILENCE
In this talk Professor Terence Keel will discuss his new book, The Coroner’s Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence. Through rigorous research–including critical records analysis, public health studies, and interviews with victims’ families–the book unmasks the systemic failures within forensic medicine. Keel shows how incomplete autopsy reports, mishandled medical documents, and strategically lost evidence effectively shield law enforcement from accountability. The Coroner’s Silence uncovers how the current system of death investigation operates as a mechanism of institutional safeguarding. By highlighting the structural powerlessness of coroners and their disconnection from the communities most affected by police violence, Keel demonstrates how bureaucratic processes can render human suffering invisible. Forcing us to confront and reimagine how we investigate, document, and understand deaths at the hands of state institutions, The Coroner’s Silence is a crucial intervention that challenges us to contend with the deeply ingrained mechanisms that perpetuate systemic violence.
Terence Keel is an award-winning Professor of Human Biology & Society, and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has written widely about race, religion, life science, law, and democracy. Keel is the Founding Director of the Lab for BioCritical Studies—an interdisciplinary space committed to studying the interactions of society and human biology. Keel also serves as the Advisor for Structural Competency and Innovation within the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. In addition to The Coroner’s Silence, Keel is also the author of Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science and co-editor of Critical Approaches to Science and Religion.