The Mayor’s Police and Community Coalition hosted its annual Youth Forum on Friday in collaboration with Tulsa Public Schools. 

MPACC is a diverse advisory committee that addresses issues affecting police/community relations and helps develop recommendations and best practices designed to enhance trust.

Delegations of teens from high schools attended the event, as well as Tulsa Police Department and Tulsa Public Schools police officers.

The Youth Forum is designed to familiarize students with:

• Law enforcement officers as “real people”;
• Reasons for police stops;
• Appropriate & inappropriate behavior during police stops;
• Avoiding gang involvement;
• Information on community policing;
• Principles of student responsibility & accountability for behaviors that may result in police contact; and
• Ideas on how to help create schools and communities that are safe and secure.

After hearing from speakers, students had the opportunity to ask police officers anything they wanted. Then, student representatives from each school shared what they learned to the whole group. 

Click through the slideshow below to see photos from the forum.