TULSA POLICE DEPARTMENT ENCOURAGES MORE WOMEN TO CONSIDER LAW ENFORCEMENT

With every lesson and every rep at Tulsa Police Department’s Women in Policing Day, women are preparing for a potential future.

“I think detectives are really cool, crime scene investigators are really cool,” said participant Dorian Glanz.

Specifically, a future in law enforcement. 18-year-old Glanz says she’s had her sights set on the police force for quite some time.

“It’s been kind of in the back of my mind for a couple of years, of course as you get older, you think of different career paths and different occupations that you might go into and what you might be interested in,” she said.

So when she stumbled upon a flier for TPD’s Women in Policing Day, participating was a no-brainer. At the event, women have the opportunity to ask officers questions, really see what it’s like, and maybe even begin to picture themselves wearing the badge.

Officer Ana Parga says she got her start through an event like this.

“Whenever I was researching Tulsa, I decided to come to an event and that is what sold me,” she said.

Now as a recruiter for the department, she hopes this event encourages a more diverse workforce and helps shatter stereotypes.

“I had the mentality of ‘okay, well this is a male-dominated field,’ however after joining the department and seeing all my fellow female police officers I was like, ‘wow…no’,” she said.

And while Dorian is just coming to see if this career field is a good fit for her, she says she appreciates how it empowers women.

“Definitely as a woman going into law enforcement, that can be a little anxiety-inducing, so having a female event is really good,” she said.