Sign-In
Cart
Complex Innocence: Defending Defiant Victims of Police Killings
Paperback
CriminologyGeneral LawGeneral Racism & Ethnic Studies
ISBN13: 9781479836581
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: Feb 10 2026
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.84
Height: 0.80 Width: 5.90 Depth: 8.80
Language: English
Exposes the paradox of self-defense in police violence through five case studies of police killings
Every day in the United States, an average of three people are killed by police officers. Black and Indigenous victims are disproportionately represented, and their stories are too often distorted by courts and media to justify their deaths and exonerate police actions.
In Complex Innocence, Lisa Marie Cacho examines five police killings that occurred between 2012 and 2019 across the continental U.S., Hawaiʻi, and the Muckleshoot Nation. Many of the victims were queer people, women of color, and other multiply marginalized individuals who had prior encounters with law enforcement, leading their deaths to be framed as deserved or inevitable. Cacho challenges these narratives by interrogating the legal, cultural, and historical frameworks that determine which acts of self-defense are protected and which are criminalized.
Drawing on self-defense law, Supreme Court cases, anti-resisting arrest statutes, and policing practices, Cacho reveals how self-defense as a right has been repeatedly redefined to privilege police officers while denying protection to victims of state violence. Through careful analysis of reports, testimonies, and media portrayals, she demonstrates how people of color's efforts at self-preservation are recast as threats, while officers' violence is framed as justifiable.
By reclaiming the complex innocence of those killed, Complex Innocence exposes the racial, sexual, and colonial foundations of policing. It offers an urgent critique of how U.S. law and culture sustain the cycle of sanctioned state violence.
Also from
Cacho, Lisa Marie
Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected
Cacho, Lisa Marie
Paperback
Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected
Cacho, Lisa Marie
Hardcover
Also in
General Racism & Ethnic Studies
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Fadiman, Anne
Paperback
In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era
Iton, Richard
Paperback
Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed-Descent Peoples and the Making of the American West
Hyde, Anne F.
Hardcover
Homosexuality in Cold War America: Resistance and the Crisis of Masculinity
Corber, Robert J.
Paperback
How to Be Less Stupid about Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide
Fleming, Crystal M.
Hardcover
Inclusive Conversations: Fostering Equity, Empathy, and Belonging Across Differences
Winters, Mary-Frances
Paperback
The Token: Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Organization
Farmer, Crystal Byrd
Paperback
Scandinavians in the State House: How Nordic Immigrants Shaped Minnesota Politics
Bergman, Klas
Paperback
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy a.
Paperback
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Rothstein, Richard
Paperback
The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria's Romance Scammers
Barragán, Carlos
Hardcover
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
P Fkn R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance
Díaz, Vanessa
Rivera-Rideau, Petra R.
Paperback
Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage
Thompson, Heather Ann
Hardcover
My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
Menakem, Resmaa
Paperback
The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic (Large Print Edition)
Gladwell, Malcolm
Paperback
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Hardcover
The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth
Fowler, Jermaine
Paperback
The Chosen and the Damned: Native Americans and the Making of Race in the United States
Silverman, David J.
Hardcover
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Revised Edition: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy a.
Hardcover
Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York's Explosive '80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial That Divided the Nation
Williams, Elliot
Hardcover
The Iceman Inheritance: Prehistoric Sources of Western Man's Racism, Sexism and Aggression
Bradley, Michael
Paperback
Original Sins: The (Mis)Education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism
Ewing, Eve L.
Paperback
Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America
Solomon-Simmons, Damario
Hardcover
American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate
Lichtblau, Eric
Hardcover
Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital
Musgrove, George Derek
Asch, Chris Myers
Paperback
Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises
Green, Erica L.
Benner, Katie
Hardcover
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Fadiman, Anne
Paperback
Crime Fictions: How Racist Lies Built a System of Mass Wrongful Conviction
Gonzalez Van Cleve, Nicole
Hardcover
The Japanese Way of Parenting: And What It Taught Me about Raising (Mostly) Calm, Caring, Capable Kids
Katayama, Lisa
Paperback
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Paperback
Man-Made: How We Designed a World That Leaves Women Out, and How We Can Make It Right
Reuther, Karen Korellis
Hardcover
How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
Richardson, Heather Cox
Paperback
Read These Banned Books: A Journal and 52-Week Reading Challenge from the American Library Association
American Library Association (ALA)
Paperback
Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church
Sack, Kevin
Hardcover
Are White Men Smarter Than Everybody Else?: Playing Offense in the Fight for Racial Justice in America
Phillips, Steve
Hardcover
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South
Jones-Rogers, Stephanie E.
Paperback
Erased: True Stories about Race and Racism in America That You Probably Weren't Taught in School
Khanna, Nikki
Korgen, Kathleen
Hardcover
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Curran, Andrew S.
Hardcover
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
We've Been Here Before: How Rebellion and Activism Have Always Sustained America
Dodson, Angela P.
Days, Michael I.
Hardcover
For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts: A Love Letter to Women of Color
Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, Prisca
Paperback
Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City
Ansfield, Bench
Hardcover
Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning with Our Past
Brown, Dorothy A.
Hardcover
Yoruba Mythology: Stories of the Orisa from West Africa and the Diaspora
Ogunnaike, Ayodeji
Hardcover
Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
Ellsworth, Scott
Hardcover
Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity
Beety, Valena
Hardcover
The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery in the Americas
Newman, Brooke N.
Hardcover
When It's Darkness on the Delta: How America's Richest Soil Became Its Poorest Land
Eubanks, W. Ralph
Hardcover
Black Marxism, Revised and Updated Third Edition: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition
Robinson, Cedric J.
Paperback
Was That Racist?: How to Detect, Interrupt, and Unlearn Bias in Everyday Life
Carter, Evelyn R.
Hardcover
The Talmud Unmasked: The Secret Rabbinical Teachings Concerning Christians
Pranaitis, I. B.
Paperback
A High Price for Freedom: Raising Hidden Voices from the African American Past
Ford, Clyde W.
Hardcover
Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul
Shetterly, Aran
Hardcover
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy Angela
Paperback
Daring to Be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World
Hazareesingh, Sudhir
Hardcover
As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake
Paperback
Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success
Fritzgerald, Andratesha
Paperback
The Priest Who Stayed in Gaza: A Witness to Hope in the Ruins
Romanelli, Fr Gabriel
de Dieuleveult, Guillaume
Paperback
White Women: Everything You Already Know about Your Own Racism and How to Do Better
Rao, Saira
Jackson, Regina
Paperback
Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else)
Táíwò, Olúfẹ́mi O.
Paperback
Rolling Stone and the Rise of Hip Capitalism: How a Magazine Born in the 1960s Changed America
Ponce de Leon, Charles L.
Hardcover
Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party
Bloom, Joshua
Martin, Waldo E., Jr.
Paperback
Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World--And How You Can, Too
Oluo, Ijeoma
Paperback
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations about Race
Tatum, Beverly Daniel
Paperback
John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law
Lew-Williams, Beth
Hardcover
Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church
Sack, Kevin
Paperback
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s
Fayer, Steve
Hampton, Henry
Paperback
The Bullwhip's Algorithm: Artificial Intelligence and America's Racial Caste System
Bobb, Kamau
Hardcover
Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch
Freeman, Andrea
Paperback
The Healing Power of African-American Spirituality: A Celebration of Ancestor Worship, Herbs and Hoodoo, Ritual and Conjure
Bird, Stephanie Rose
Paperback
Frederick Douglass's American Founding: How the Nation's Fiercest Critic Embraced the Constitution
Rasmussen, Dennis C.
Hardcover
Stamped from the Beginning [Graphic Edition]: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America
Christian Gill, Joel
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to Covid-19
Bonhomme, Edna
Paperback
The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate
Dozier, Curtis
Hardcover