“Beyond the Frame: Reconstructing Police Violence”

Brad Samuels discusses SITU's methods for digitally reconstructing + analyzing excessive use of force incidents to hold police accountable

Since the late spring, SITU Research has been conducting visual investigations of protests from across the United States. This growing library of examples documents the breadth and depth of police violence and excessive use of force against protestors in its systemic context. The work leverages the extensive, publicly available, citizen documentation of each event and merges it with digital reconstruction techniques to isolate and analyze key interactions between law enforcement and civilians from multiple perspectives and crucial spatial contexts. This presentation will feature how these reconstructions serve as vehicles for accountability in the presentation of two cases: evidentiary material in a lawsuit against the Portland Police Bureau, and as an advocacy tool in a report against the New York Police Department.

Brad Samuels is a founding partner at SITU and the Director of SITU Research—an organization that merges data and design to create new pathways for justice. Outside the multidisciplinary practice, Brad sits on the Technology Advisory Board for the International Criminal Court and the Board of The Architectural League of New York, is a Fellow with the Urban Design Forum and teaches in Barnard College and Columbia University’s undergraduate architecture program