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The Coroner's Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence
For readers of His Name Is George Floyd and Under the Skin
A landmark investigation into forensic medicine that exposes the systematic concealment of state-sanctioned violence through death investigations
Each year, police officers kill over 1,000 people they've sworn to protect and serve. While some cases, like George Floyd's and Sandra Bland's, capture national attention, most victims remain nameless, their stories untold. The Coroner's Silence reveals a disturbing truth about these coroners and other death investigators are often complicit in obscuring the violent circumstances of in-custody deaths.
Through rigorous research—including critical records analysis, public health studies, and interviews with victims' families—this book unmasks the systemic failures within forensic medicine. Terence 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.
True accountability requires more than procedural reform. It demands a fundamental reimagining of 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 confront the deeply ingrained mechanisms that perpetuate systemic violence.
A landmark investigation into forensic medicine that exposes the systematic concealment of state-sanctioned violence through death investigations
Each year, police officers kill over 1,000 people they've sworn to protect and serve. While some cases, like George Floyd's and Sandra Bland's, capture national attention, most victims remain nameless, their stories untold. The Coroner's Silence reveals a disturbing truth about these coroners and other death investigators are often complicit in obscuring the violent circumstances of in-custody deaths.
Through rigorous research—including critical records analysis, public health studies, and interviews with victims' families—this book unmasks the systemic failures within forensic medicine. Terence 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.
True accountability requires more than procedural reform. It demands a fundamental reimagining of 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 confront the deeply ingrained mechanisms that perpetuate systemic violence.
- GenresNonfictionHistoryCrime
224 pages, Hardcover
Published November 11, 2025
3 people are currently reading
3433 people want to read
About the author
Terence Keel
4 books15 followersTerence Keel is an award-winning scholar, the founding director of the BioCritical Studies Lab, and a professor of human biology, society, and African American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is author of "Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science" and co-editor of "Critical Approaches to Science and Religion. Keel has received fellowships from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 24, 2025
really great!! balanced the personal + academic well, lots of information i didn't already know in here + i appreciated the approach to discussing victims of police brutality as much more than just numbers or cases. i don't personally find it important to make the argument that change would be good for the white people actively advocating against it - but the author thinks that's important, and a difference in political philosophy is irrelevant when this is such an honest, focused and important account of a system that does tremendous visible and invisible harm. highly recommend!
November 4, 2025
Definitely an eye opener. Heartache among families for sure.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews