Cautions from personal experience: Shreveport is in the Top 100 US' Unfriendlyest Cities; a seething cesspool of dysfunction. In Shrevport, a peasant Economy, you get as much Justice as you can afford. While City Staff can have someone arrested with a phone call with no supporting evidence, local peasants (the poor) are often on the receiving end of criminal intent. The "System" is completely out of their reach maintaining unsafe conditions from those who wish to them harm including the Municipality itself which is hypervitriolic.
Shreveport is a typical dysfunctional Louisiana Government, operating in unfriendly isolation with little or no oversight, embodying all the defective antisocial attributes of the past cloaked in modern appearances; only a facade. Remember that old cliche; Looks can be deceiving? While the Staff and Officials come across as courteous and friendly, the System which supports them is vicious, corrupt, unfriendly, fully practiced in dirty tricks, and perpetually turning a deaf ear. It is not advisable to question or contest the status quo of this System, its fangs will bite you with lethal impunity. Another cliche; "You can't fight City Hall." In Shreveport this translates into, "City Hall will fight you every time without ever loosing."
Do not use the phone (Email) to complain of lack of service, this will lead to less service than before you phoned to file a complaint.
Do not use the phone (Email) to complain to the Police or Elected Officials of disturbances from neighbors or the frequent booming noise from boom cars, or violations of your rights. To teach you a lesson and shut you up, this corrupt System will relieve you of your freedom (false arrest), land you in Jail and Municipal Court, and take your money and property.
The Municipal Court is out of touch and insolar, and operates without oversight, another dysfunctional local institution completely isolated from common sense. Be aware that once you land in Shreveport Municipal or Caddo Parish Court, logic and Justice are only a moot discussion, not something available to you. The Prosecutors mumble and whisper to the Court. The Prosecutors are only interested in their oblique agenda and not their real job, protecting "The People" from criminals.
Safety in the Municipal Court is flaky at best. Entry by workers and "Court Familiars" around and not through the Metal detectors is common place. The Court Rooms are populated with many individuals with Guns. Everyone knows that a Gun may be wrenched away from anyone with a Gun in the blink of an eye, then used to commit an atrocity. Guns in Court is a formula for disaster. Police with Guns is no guarantee this will stop someone from using them on other. Police with Guns never stopped someone with an intent.
Your right to equal Justice (a farce in this community) is controlled by the Police. Your right to redress is only available if a report to the Police is prosecuted. The oblique agenda of the Local Police controls what is prosecuted by the Reports they submit to the Court, which is selectively submitted based on this agenda, not on your need for Equal Justice.
Your Federal Funds are selectively spent by the Administration with no oversight. The Police control the Neighborhood Watch organizations support structure, where the whiter side of town receives high levels of support with large Neighborhood watch organizations and completely ignores the darker areas of town by not responding to requests for formation of a Neighborhood watch.
Do not depend on the local Courts to help you, unless you have plenty of time, money, and lawyers, for lawyers are the only way to protect yourself from this corrupt System, never mind the huge amount of time it takes to get your way, the way promised by the Constitution of the United States which mostly not observed as part of Louisiana. This is why the rich do not experience the problems outlined on this page.
Do not be self deceived, just because it is the present with all its Internet and Computer power, this System still works as if it is the mid 19th Century when this System was formed, with all its "Good-Old-Boy" Politics and back-room dealing. If you want to see real Charlatans at work, attend a City Council Meetings. Grease helps lubricate those in the "System" who are already sufficiently slippery.
City Services are lavished on the more Well-off neighborhoods. The poor neighborhoods, referred to by local Officials as "Shithole Neighborhoods", are denied services and ignored by City Departments which receive Federally funded programs. Zoning and Code Enforcement is complaint driven, but is hostile to complainants, go figure.
Because of poor planning in the past, Shreveport is in debt to the tune of over $1,000,000,000, that's one Billion Dollars with a B. Zoning and Code Enforcement run out of money less than 6 months into the Fiscal year and just ride along floating on Salaries for the remainder of the year doing nothing effective by default.
This "System" was set up decades ago to unfairly favor the rich and powerful with all the unfair privilege made famous in Movies and Television. The poor are powerless and do not receive their deserved protection and services claimed to be the cornerstone of the local government as claimed in the City Charter which is rather vacuous and cryptic, laced with 'Americanized' Old English Jargon: as follows...
The criminal mind is difficult to understand but criminal activity is cultivated in Shreveport's "Culture of Crime". The seething cesspool of dysfunction we call Shreveport is not a nice place. The locals are so dysfunctional and criminal in their normal activities it has become a tragedy of which Shakespeare would envy. To rectify the situation would be to raze the community and renew it. The Culturally inept and Socially unacceptable locals should be forced to relocate. This will humble them and teach them to be more amenable.
I only wish Huricanes, tornados, floods, lightning, and earthquakes would visit us, for the plain working truth is that it is not only good for people to be shocked occasionally, but absolutely necessary to the progress of society that they should be shocked pretty often. If Natural catastrophes that scare people witless is what it takes to get the locals to stop cursing and living the life of crime, maybe we need a few of these catastrophes to visit this "Culture of Crime" to scare it into a more cooperative sociable community.
When I pray, I pray for a local catastrophe. “God, please smite the wicked with wind, water, and lightning. Send your messenger, the Archangel Gabriel, to take away the transgressors.”