Cohort 2022

Kilómetro Cero

The Data Inside: What We Can Learn from Official Police Use of Force Data

Río Piedras County, Puerto Rico  

In Puerto Rico, 3.1 per 1 million people a year die from police use of force. Among residents from poor and racially diverse neighborhoods, that rate is 4.8 per 1 million, compared with 2.1 per 1 million in higher-income, white neighborhoods. In other words, the combined effect of race and poverty may double the risk of death at the hands of police. Moreover, Afro-Caribbean people in Puerto Rico experiencing poverty are more vulnerable than those not experiencing poverty to excessive police use of force.

With Catalyst Grant funding, Kilómetro Cero, in partnership with Human Rights Data Analysis Group, will work with families in a subgroup of the Manuel A. Perez public housing community, which has high incidences of crime and a large Afro-Caribbean population. The partnership will create a database of over 7,000 reports of police use of force from 2014 through 2021 to analyze racial and socioeconomic patterns. By comparing the data with its own database of violent, discriminatory, and excessive police interventions, Kilómetro Cero will be able to better understand incidents of state violence in its community. This work will produce a searchable, open-access roster of officers who use force in their interventions. Kilómetro Cero will also share and review findings with families who have lost loved ones and Manuel A. Perez community residents, building opportunities to discuss and reimagine public safety.