DescriptionMajor roads are legible public spaces in the landscape. They provide access and mobility and foster economic growth and social interaction. Roads also encompass less visible systems of economic power, political control and law enforcement practices that provoke fatal civilian encounters involving law enforcement. A review of fatal civilian encounters in New Jersey from 2020 to 2022 – the time frame of the Covid-19 lockdown - sheds light on the spatial and social entanglements of roadways and violent policing practices that target marginalized communities, including people of color, immigrants, youth, seniors, LGBTTQI+ and people affected by mental health conditions or substance use. The transdisciplinary, multi-scalar, place-based approach of this study draws upon a Feminist Political Ecological framework to reveal how government and media accounts obscure the specific physical and phenomenological infrastructures of power in the public landscape of roadways. The study concludes with a call for increased transparency in government accounts and advocates for greater collaboration between transportation agencies, place-based practitioners, and the communities they serve regarding the unequal distribution of resources and excessive use of force in policing.