Center for Africana Studies Lecture Series: Terence Keel

Description

Terence Keel, an associate professor in the UCLA Department of African American Studies and the UCLA Institute for Society & Genetics, will give a talk titled "The Dead Speak, Rarely We Listen: Understanding the Racial Politics of Death Investigation" for the Center for Africana Studies.

Abstract:

Autopsies conducted after a death under police custody have authority at the nexus of public health, forensic sciences, and state law. However, postmortem medical examinations rarely establish police culpability even when evidence indicates otherwise. This is especially true for Black people who lose their lives during fatal police encounters. In this talk, Terence Keel shares his findings after studying over 600 autopsies from police-involved deaths throughout the U.S. and explains why postmortem analysis continually fails Black, Latinx, and underemployed communities.