On September 15, 21-year-old college student Demartravion “Trey” Reed was found hanging from a tree on Delta State University’s campus in Cleveland, Mississippi. Like other deaths sharing lynching imagery, Reed’s was ruled a suicide. Colin Kaepernick, who has been paying for second autopsies of victims of police violence since 2022, is funding Reed’s second autopsy. Here’s why these independent autopsies are so needed.
A century ago, police and coroners started writing off Black lynchings as suicides. That practice continues in coroners’ offices today. Some officials who handle autopsies are elected, tied to the sheriff’s department, or double as sheriffs. Most of them aren’t even required to have medical training but are empowered to fabricate causes of death for victims of white supremacist violence.
According to a ProPublica, FRONTLINE, and NPR investigation, these offices make critical errors. Some of the most alarming are blatant mistakes in identifying causes of death, “losing” dead bodies, cremating bodies prematurely, and not even bothering to perform autopsies on assumed suicides at all.
Autopsies can bring us significantly closer to the truth about deaths when conducted properly and in good faith. As Black communities endure the dual anguish of white supremacist violence and mental health crises, coroners compound that anguish by concealing the truth.
When we’re working to delegitimize the criminal legal system based on its anti-Blackness, “scientific” and “medical” roles within the system must be delegitimized and interrogated, too.