Forensic Architecture

I.114  Shoot Me, I Bare My Chest: The Killing of Abu Sayed

Date of Incident
16 Jul 2024
Location
Rangpur, Bangladesh
Forums
Exhibition, Media
In Partnership With
Drik Picture Library
Summary
On 16 July 2024, police fatally shot a student, Abu Sayed, during mass protests over Bangladesh’s reinstated quota system. His extrajudicial killing became a symbol of resistance amid a broader uprising against authoritarianism, economic injustice, and systemic state violence.

SP.5  Police Violence and Misinformation at the 2025 Nakba Day Protest, Berlin · Supported Project ↗

Date of Incident
15 May 2025
Location
Berlin
Forums
Media
An FA-supported project by
Forensis
Summary
Since October 2023, demonstrations in solidarity with the people of Palestine have been subjected to significant police violence, but also misinformation. Following the annual Nakba Day demonstration, Berlin Police claimed an officer had been severely injured by violent protesters. Our analysis of video evidence showed every one of their claims to be false.

I.98  The Murder of June Knightly

Date of Incident
19 Feb 2022
Location
Normandale Park, Portland, Oregon
Forums
Exhibition, Media
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Summary
June 'T-Rex' Knightly was murdered while preparing to protect a racial justice protest, by a perpetrator inspired by toxic rhetoric from right-wing influencers and politicians. Four others were seriously wounded. False statements by Portland’s police after the attack implied the victims provoked the mass shooting. We worked with survivors to reconstruct the event, and challenge the police account.

I.96  The Killing of Sammy Baker

Date of Incident
13 Aug 2020
Location
Amsterdam-West, Netherlands
Forums
Legal Process, Media
In Partnership With
Argos (VPRO)
Summary
23-year-old Sammy went to Amsterdam to celebrate his birthday with friends. Three days later, after an episode of mental health crisis, Sammy was shot to death by police, who claim he threatened them with a knife. At the request of Sammy's family, FA and Forensis examined the video evidence and police testimony, while reconstructing Sammy's body position at the moment of the shots.

I.95  The Killing of Dilan Cruz

Date of Incident
01 Nov 2019
Location
Bogotá, Colombia
Forums
Legal Process
Commissioned By
Fundación Comité de Solidaridad con los Presos Políticos (CSPP)
Summary
During the 2019 'national strike' demonstrations in Colombia, 18-year-old protester Dilan Cruz was shot by a bean bag round fired by police in Bogotá, and died two days later. The Colombian Attorney General subsequently published a report defending the killing and accusing Cruz of being part of a mob; our investigation shows how this conclusion derives from a misreading of the visual evidence.

I.92  'Tear Gas Tuesday' in Downtown Portland

Date of Incident
02 Jun 2020
Location
Portland, Oregon, USA
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition, Media
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Summary
Over the summer of 2020, Portland's police force deployed large amounts of tear gas to suppress local demonstrations against racialised police violence. Focusing on a single representative day—2 June 2020—we simulated the path of the toxic tear gas clouds as they spread widely across the city centre, demonstrating that the concentration levels were in serious excess of recognised safe thresholds.

I.83  Sheikh Jarrah: Ethnic Cleansing in Jerusalem

Date of Incident
12 May 2021
Location
Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem
Forums
Media
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Summary
This interactive urban narrative explains the ways in which Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah are being forcibly displaced, and their struggle with Israeli courts and settler groups. The story traverses multiple scales starting from homes invaded by settlers, and moves to the street, neighbourhood, city and the land, showing how colonial practices and apartheid planning displace Palestinians.

I.77  Racist Terror Attack in Hanau: The Arena Bar

Date of Incident
19 Feb 2020
Location
Hanau, Germany
Forums
Media, Parliamentary Inquiry
Commissioned By
Initiative 19. Februar, Lawyers for the Gültekin family
Summary
On 19 February 2020, in Hanau, Germany, a racist terror attack left nine people dead, six of them in or near the local Arena bar. There are reports that the bar’s emergency exit was routinely locked, and the victims of the attack didn’t run towards it for that reason. We examined whether, had they tried to do so, and it had been open, they could have survived the attack.

I.75  The Black Boxes of Disappearance: Enforced Disappearance in the Siege of the Palace of Justice

Date of Incident
06 Nov 1985 – 07 Nov 1985
Location
Bogotá, Colombia
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition, Media, Truth Commission, Web Platform
Commissioned By
The Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition of Colombia
Summary
Our investigation examines the actions of the Colombian security forces in the aftermath of the 1985 siege of the Palace of Justice that resulted in the enforced disappearance of cafeteria workers, students, visitors, guerrillas, and judges.

I.67  Tear Gas in Plaza de la Dignidad

Date of Incident
20 Dec 2019
Location
Plaza de la Dignidad, Santiago de Chile
Forums
Media
Commissioned By
No+lacrimógenas
Summary
On 20 December 2019, the Chilean security forces used unprecedented quantities of tear gas within a relatively small area against people engaging in peaceful and unarmed protest. Using visual open source analysis and fluid dynamic simulation, we measured the concentration of tear gas in air and on the ground to estimate the scale of health risks posed on civilians on this day.

I.66  The Killing of Zineb Redouane

Date of Incident
01 Dec 2018
Location
Rue des Feuillants, Marseille
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
Disclose
Summary
80-year-old Zineb Redouane was fatally wounded by a tear gas grenade as she stood at the window of her fourth-floor apartment, as protests continued in the streets outside. A ballistics report cleared the officer who fired the shot of wrongdoing. Working with Disclose, we re-examined the case.

I.60  Police Brutality at the Black Lives Matter Protests

Date of Incident
25 May 2020 – Ongoing
Location
Minneapolis, MN and across the US
Forums
United Nations, Web Platform
In Partnership With
Bellingcat
Summary
Protests against racialized police violence have swept the US, following the killings of George Floyd and others. Those protests have themselves been met with egregious brutality by police. With Bellingcat, we built a comprehensive archive of that systemic violence, to support accountability efforts.

I.61  The Killing of Muhammad al-Arab

Date of Incident
02 Mar 2020
Location
Evros/Meriç river delta
Forums
Legal Process, Media, Parliamentary Inquiry
In Partnership With
Self-Initiated
Summary
When Turkey mobilized refugees and migrants to cross into Greece, reports emerged that Greek forces had responded with live fire, causing casualties. We confirmed that, despite Greece’s denials, automatic rounds were fired from the Greek side of the border and one person, Muhammad al-Arab, was shot dead near a group of armed Greek soldiers.

I.58  The Killing of Mark Duggan

Date of Incident
04 Aug 2011
Location
Tottenham, North London
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition, Media
Commissioned By
Lawyers for the Duggan family
Summary
Mark Duggan’s killing by police led to the most widespread social unrest in the UK in a generation. A decade on, what happened remains unclear. Using information in the public domain, we analysed both the event of the shooting, and the official investigations, in closer detail than ever before.

I.55  The Killing of Muhammad Gulzar

Date of Incident
04 Mar 2020
Location
Kastanies/Pazarkule border crossing, Evros/Meriç region
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
Bellingcat, Lighthouse Reports
Summary
After Turkey started encouraging refugees and migrants to cross the Evros/Meriç land border into Greece, reports emerged that Greek forces had responded with live fire, causing multiple casualties. Despite Greece’s official denials, we confirmed that live rounds were indeed fired from the Greek side of the border, that several people were wounded, and one person, Muhammad Gulzar, was killed.

I.47  The Killing of Harith Augustus

Date of Incident
14 Jul 2018
Location
South Shore, Chicago
Forums
Exhibition
In Partnership With
Invisible Institute
Summary
When police shot Harith Augustus to death not far from his South Shore barbershop, the Chicago police called it a legitimate 'split-second' decision. We unpacked that split second at six different time scales, from milliseconds to years. Our investigation uncovered multiple violations by Chicago police, including, not for the first time, withholding critical video evidence from the public.

I.43  Triple-Chaser

Date of Incident
26 Nov 2018
Location
Tijuana-San Diego border, US/Mexico; Gaza, Palestine; and around the world
Forums
Exhibition, Media
In Partnership With
Praxis Films
Summary
When US border agents fired tear gas grenades at civilians, including children, photographs linked the grenades to the Safariland Group, which is owned by Warren B. Kanders, the vice chair of the board of trustees of the Whitney Museum of American Art. In response to our invitation to the Whitney Biennial 2019, we developed machine learning classifiers to search for Safariland munitions online.

I.40  The Killing of Rouzan al-Najjar

Date of Incident
01 Jun 2018
Location
Khuzaa, Gaza
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
The New York Times
Summary
Amid the chaos and violence of the Great March of Return, a young Palestinian medic is struck and killed by a sniper's bullet. Together with the New York Times we used photogrammetry, video analysis, and figure modelling to locate the victim among the crowd at the moment she was shot, and traced a line of fire back to a sand berm on the Israeli side of the border fence.

I.42  The Killing of Zak Kostopoulos

Date of Incident
21 Sep 2018
Location
Athens, Greece
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition
Commissioned By
The Kostopoulos family
Summary
In broad daylight, in a crowded street in central Athens, a young LGBTQ activist is brutally assaulted. Passers-by paused to watch. Police arrived, violently apprehended the young man, and by the time he reached a hospital, he was dead. At the request of his family, we pieced together the available video evidence. What was the motive for the attack? And who is the man in the yellow t-shirt?

I.39  The Killing of Tahir Elçi

Date of Incident
28 Nov 2015
Location
Diyarbakır, Turkey
Forums
Legal Process, Media
Commissioned By
Diyarbakır Bar Association
Summary
In the context of rising tensions in Turkey's Kurdish-majority regions, Tahir Elçi's killing was a seismic event. The manner of his death was controversial, and only partially documented. We analysed the evidence frame-by-frame, and narrowed down the scope of who should be considered a suspect.

I.19  Killing in Umm al-Hiran

Date of Incident
18 Jan 2017
Location
Umm al Hiran, Negev/Naqab desert
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Summary
A police raid on an ‘illegalised’ Bedouin village in the Naqab/Negev desert led to the deaths of a local man and an Israeli policeman. Police quickly blamed the man for what they called a ‘terror attack’. In fact, as we exposed, Israeli police had fired unprovoked on an innocent driver, causing him to crash into them.

I.36  The Murder of Pavlos Fyssas

Date of Incident
18 Sep 2013
Location
Athens, Greece
Forums
Legal Process, Media
Commissioned By
Lawyers for the Fyssas family
Summary
The murder of an anti-fascist rapper by a member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn could bring an end to the group's political ambitions. We analysed CCTV and police audio recordings to reconstruct the events of the night. Our evidence, presented to an Athens courtroom, poses difficult questions for the Greek police.

I.33  The Killing of Óscar Pérez

Date of Incident
15 Jan 2018
Location
El Junquito, Venezuela
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
Bellingcat
Summary
A former intelligence agent turned rebel live-streamed his final hours on social media during a tense stand-off with security forces in El Junquito, near Caracas. We used that footage to try to answer: did the agent try to surrender? Were he and his group murdered by the state?

I.28  The Enforced Disappearance of the Ayotzinapa Students

Date of Incident
26 Sep 2014 – 27 Sep 2014
Location
Iguala, Mexico
Forums
Exhibition, Media, Web Platform
Commissioned By
Centro Prodh, Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense, EAAF
Summary
When Mexican police and local organised crime coordinated to attack a group of students, six people were murdered, forty wounded and forty-three 'disappeared'. We built an interactive platform to explore what happened that night, and to expose the inconsistencies in the state’s investigation of its own involvement in one of the most shocking moments of violence in the history of modern Mexico.

I.24  The Murder of Halit Yozgat

Date of Incident
06 Apr 2006
Location
Kassel, Germany
Forums
Citizens' Tribunal, Exhibition, Media, Parliamentary Inquiry
Commissioned By
The People's Tribunal 'Unraveling the NSU Complex'
Summary
Halit Yozgat was murdered by neo-Nazis at the desk of his internet café in Kassel, Germany, while a state intelligence agent was sitting just metres away. The agent claimed he didn’t hear the gunshots, didn’t smell the gunpowder, and didn’t see the body. Using digital models and 1:1 physical reconstructions, we tested those claims.

I.12  The Killing of Nadeem Nawara and Mohammed Abu Daher

Date of Incident
15 May 2014
Location
Beitunia, West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories
Forums
Exhibition, Media
Commissioned By
DCI Palestine
Summary
When Israeli military police killed two Palestinian teenagers, the event was recorded by security cameras, US news teams, and photographers. Using that footage, our audio and image analysis exposed a tactic by which Israeli personnel disguise live rounds as rubber-coated ‘non-lethal’ munitions.

I.63  The Death of Adama Traoré

Date of Incident
19 Jul 2016
Location
Beaumont-Sur-Oise, Paris, France
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
Le Monde
Summary
The 2016 death of a man in police custody raised troubling questions, but medical examiners later cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing. We built multiple reconstructions of each key moment of the incident, exposing contradictions in the officers' accounts, and gaps between the official account, and the evidence.