SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – High school students from Huntington and Green Oaks had the chance to have a candid conversation about gun violence with Shreveport police.

A panel including SPD Chief Wayne Smith, Caddo Schools Superintendent Lamar Goree, and four high school students began the discussion talking about the social pressures of gun violence and crime.

“I just feel like some people just don’t have anything better to do,” said a Huntington High School student. “They’re not really at school to learn and they’re just looking for entertainment and looking for problems in all the wrong places.”

The students shifted the discussion to the impact of social media.

Several lined up to share their experience, saying many of the fights on campus actually start online.

“So I took myself some notes,” said Chief Wayne Smith. “I’ve got a page full of notes to go back and read them again and think about them and digest them and try to help to coordinate that kind of thinking into the strategies that we develop to try to make our city a safer community.”

The mutual transparency between faculty, law enforcement and students allowed for all parties to express their concerns.

“We as a community are struggling with defining what is going to be the most effective way to bring about change,” said Lamar Goree, Superintendent of Caddo Parish Public Schools. “I think that we’ve had these conversations in the past and quite frankly have not seen the change that we’d hope for.”