JOHN PERKINS
Contributing Columnist
“Mama put my guns in the ground,
I can’t shoot them anymore,
That cold, black cloud is comin’ down,
Feels like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.” -- Bob Dylan
Thirteen-year-old Kelvonte Daigre didn’t make it home in time for the Shreveport juvenile curfew of midnight on weekends. For my ex-pat friends living abroad, this must seem horrifying. Juveniles in two separate vehicles exchanging gunfire, wounding three teens, two of them critically, and killing 13-year-old Kelvonte. Bullets from the Grand Theft Auto-style street battle that erupted near Youree and Bert Kouns struck a vehicle driven by a mom carrying her 5-year-old to pick up her teen daughter from work. The shrapnel came inside the car. Bullets struck nearby businesses. Just like a real-life, first-person shooter (FPS) game that teen boys play obsessively.
China, the commie country that invented Chinese brain washing, announced this week that they have limited online video games to three hours a week for young people. That’s un-American, but maybe the old commies know something about neural plasticity, our brains’ malleability when confronted with repeated messages over and over. Back in my day, we only had three boring TV channels, and we had to go outside and interact with each other and learn to get along the hard way. We had team sports to practice together, and then we made up our own sports together -- neighborhood X-games, if you will.
The city council will no doubt take up this tragic murder. Councilman Boucher is calling for a curfew. We already have one. Maybe we should tighten it up and enforce it. Those in certain neighborhoods know that there has been a rash of guns stolen from unlocked cars left overnight. Maybe we could talk about where teens are getting their guns and hold adults responsible for locking up weapons. I know from time spent volunteering to tutor at-risk children through the VOA Communities in Schools program that there are some wonderful young people who will be Kelvonte’s age before we blink. Their parents may be separated and working the night shifts at 24/7 businesses. I also volunteer with Community Renewal International (communityrenewal.us) that helps kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods achieve goals and go to college because of Friendship House programs. We could use more of those, please.
Is it time for our new substitute police chief, Wayne Smith, to step down? There is an election coming up next year. I don’t see how the mayor can get re-elected, but I believe we are in for another 16 years of one-term mayors. The misery here is too great. We can’t afford anything any longer; there can be no midnight basketball leagues to keep kids off the streets. We can’t afford to repair our streets, but we keep annexing more. It is like a friend who moved to Dallas a year ago said: “Shreveport has no ability to self-correct.” Let me know what you think, and please pray. PerkWrites@gmail.com