Across the country, more than 1,000 people die in police encounters each year, and coroners often omit or hide the role of state violence.

Reports show that 2025 was the deadliest year for ICE in over two decades, with 32 deaths in custody. Just weeks into 2026, the trend had accelerated: at least 6 deaths occurred in the first 14 days of January alone. In a particularly high-profile case, an autopsy by the El Paso Medical Examiner found that the death of Geraldo Lunas Campos at Fort Bliss, originally attributed to "medical distress" by the state, was actually a homicide.

This gap between the official narrative and the forensic truth is the central focus of Dr. Terence Keel’s work, and in his new book, The Coroner’s Silence, Dr. Keel details how state-appointed officials mask critical details about in-custody deaths, shifting responsibility onto the deceased and shielding institutions from accountability.

Dr. Terence Keel is a Professor of Human Biology and Society, and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also author of Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science and in 2020 created the UCLA BioCritical Studies (BCS) Lab, an interdisciplinary space that investigates the complex interactions between human biology and society.