It is a simple story. A thirty-seven-year-old man belonging to the Traveller community is shot dead by a special unit of the French police on the family farm where he was hiding since he failed to return to prison after temporary release. The officers claim self-defence. The relatives, present at the scene, contest that claim. A case is opened and it concludes with a dismissal that is upheld on appeal. Dismayed by these decisions, the family continues the struggle for truth and justice.

Giving each account of the tragedy the same credit, Didier Fassin conducts a counter investigation, based on the re-examination of all the available details and on the interviews of its protagonists. Using an experimental method, he first scrupulously recreates the event according to each of the contradictory versions, then combines the testimonies and the expert assessments. His reconstitution of the incident culminates in a distinct reading of what happened that day.

A critical reflection on the work of police forces and the functioning of the justice system, and on the conditions that make such tragedies possible and never punished, Death of a Traveller is also an attempt to restore to these marginalized communities what they are usually denied: respectability.