No Human Involved

The Serial Murder of Black Women and Girls and the Deadly Cost of Police Indifference

De: Cheryl L. Neely

Narrado por: Karen Chilton

An urgent examination of the invisibility of Black women and girls as victims of targeted killings, and the lack of police intervention and media coverage

When Black women and girls are targeted and murdered their cases are often categorized by police officers as “N.H.I.”–“No Humans Involved.” Dehumanized and invisible to the public eye, they are rarely seen as victims. In the United States, Black women are killed at a higher rate than any other group of women, but their victimhood is not covered by the media and their cases do not receive an adequate level of urgency.

Utilizing intensive historical research of cases in cities such as Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angles, Cheryl Neely calls attention to serial cases of Black female murder victims and a lack of police action. Neely approaches each case and story with detailed care. Instead of focusing solely on the killings and the murderers, she highlights the lives of the women and girls and their communities that never stopped fighting for justice. With media neglect and police indifference, Neely argues that because law enforcement is less likely to conduct serious investigations into the disappearances and homicides of Black women, they are particularly vulnerable to become victims.

Diving deep into the unseen and unheard, Neely uses personal interviews, court records, media reports, and analytical data to understand how and why Black women are disproportionately more likely to die from homicide in comparison to their white counterpoints. Sounding an urgent alarm, No Human Involved contends that it is time for Black women’s lives to matter not only to their families and communities, but especially to those commissioned to protect them.

©2025 Cheryl L. Neely (P)2025 Beacon Press Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“A vital, infuriating addition to the literature on racial prejudice in US law enforcement.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Activists involved in equitable policing, judicial reform, and victims’ rights will find value in Neely’s account.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Cheryl Neely’s latest, No Human Involved, grapples in deeply personal and poignant detail not just with the cold reality that Black lives have stunningly little value to the police, to the media, and to city hall in America’s major cities, but with the even more chilling fact that the lives of Black women have mattered not at all. Via the stories of Black women who have been lost to the record and for whom the justice system rarely rallied, this powerful book calls upon us all to remember the stolen lives of Black women and to demand that they now be seen, heard, and protected.”
—Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

The narrator was simply outstanding!!!

The book was heartbreaking but well written. It was a powerful elucidation of a problem that needs desperate attention - the dismissal of Black women and girls as victims of homicide and police inertia in their investigations of such.