Six Durations of a Split Second: The Killing of Harith Augustus
Photo Credit: Jason Schumer
On July 14, 2018, 37-year-old Harith Augustus, a local barber, was shot to death by police patrolling 71st Street in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood.
By means of new forensic techniques and on-the-ground reporting, a year-long investigation by FA and II contests the police narrative that the shooting was justified. It investigates the incident from multiple perspectives and demonstrates that the fatal encounter was caused by aggressive policing rather than any criminal conduct by Augustus.
The result is six video-investigations, each of which reconstructs the event across a distinct time scale—from milliseconds to years—and exposes different dimensions of police violence. Taken together, these counter-investigations of the killing of Harith Augustus raise fundamental questions about policing and race in the United States.
An Investigation by the Invisible Institute and Forensic Architecture, presented at the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial
Reflecting on “Six Durations of a Split Second: The Killing of Harith Augustus”
Thank you for engaging with the investigation. After taking some time to digest the content, we invite you to reflect with us.
Some questions to help guide your reflection:
What was your reaction to the initial media release of the incident? Have your feelings changed after accessing more footage and analysis?
Why was it important for you to see this video installation? What’s the value of seeing such footage?
What were you prepared to feel? What was unexpected?
Additional Reporting
Two years after our reporting with Forensic Architecture, new unedited body camera footage released in the context of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, makes it possible to examine the sequence of police actions immediately after Officer Dillan Halley killed Harith Augustus. Viewed together with previously released footage, it deepens our understanding of how a demonstrably official false narrative of a police killing takes shape. Explore the new footage and read Jamie Kalven’s reporting in The Intercept.
Our reporting’s impact continues nearly five years later with the release of the short film Incident by Bill Morrison. Using the above mentioned unedited body-worn camera footage as well as surveillance, CCTV, and dashboard video, filmmaker Bill Morrison reconstructs the 2018 police killing of Harith Augustus as a synchronized split-screen montage. Incident can be viewed at The New Yorker and won the 2023 International Documentary Best Short Documentary Award. Incident is, in part, based on Jamie Kalven’s reporting and Jamie is credited as a producer.