Outcry At OKC City Council Meeting, Community Members Push For Culturally Sensitive Public Safety Initiatives

At the Oklahoma City Council meeting on Tuesday morning, several individuals spoke in support of various public safety initiatives, including the OKC Public Safety Partnership, following previous use-of-force incidents. 

“These questions are not in abstract - Oklahoma City has one of the highest rates of police violence per capita in the United States,” said Tasneem Al-Michael with the Center for Community and Justice “Between 2013 and 2021 OKCPD was involved in 58 fatalities - a rate higher than 98% of police departments nationwide.” 

Al-Michael was one of several community members who spoke out for enhanced public safety initiatives at the city council meeting on Tuesday. 

Two previous use-of-force incidents remained at the forefront of the conversation: 

1. One stemmed from November 2020 when Oklahoma City Police fatally shot 15-year-old Stavian Rodriguex during an armed robbery. 
2. The other incident happened in October when a police takedown ended with a 71-year-old man in the ICU with a brain bleed. 

“His case is not an isolated event, but rather reflects the systemic issues that deeply affect the immigrant communities in our city,” Al-Michael said. 

Members of the Vietnamese American Community of Oklahoma shared that they believe a language barrier prevented de-escalation, leaving the Asian community hurt and angry. 

“Most importantly, there has been feelings of distrust in our leaders and our leadership,” said President-elect of the Vietnamese American Community of Oklahoma Thuan Nguyen. 

The organization continued to share. “My offer to Oklahoma City to rebuild the trust is to take that one community at a time; to build better understanding, empathy, compassion, and most importantly, build relationships that is long-lasting,” Nguyen added. 

The City of Oklahoma City has been working to implement 39 recommendations from a City Community Partnership in 2022 that was formed coming out of George Floyd's death and the protests that followed in 2020. 

Among those recommendations included a de-escalation policy and training in crisis response, which the community said is especially important now. 

Since the initial recommendations were made in 2022, the city created several advisory boards to fulfill the recommendations. 

13 of the 39 have been implemented, according to the city’s website.