The City of Montgomery is contracting with a private Louisiana company to handle some accident investigations.
TrafficServe is a startup civilian accident investigation company that will handle minor accidents in place of Montgomery Police officers. The company will provide three cars for civilian traffic accident investigators and two additional employees for eight hours a day, five days a week.
The civilian investigators will write up accident reports for minor accidents during that time and handle light traffic duties. The city is funding its services at a cost of $1.45 million for the first year of the contract. By comparison, a new trained and certified Montgomery County Sheriff’s deputy, including salary and benefits, would’ve cost only $100,000 each annually, according to Montgomery County Commission chairman Doug Singleton.
Montgomery Police Chief James Graboys said at a Montgomery City Council meeting in October that the TrafficServe was run by a retired police chief. However, the co-founder and CEO of the company, Marcus Mitchell Toussaint, was actually an assistant chief of police in Shreveport who was originally fired from his position in 2022 due to an alleged sexual encounter with a female investigator at the police station. His termination was later reversed, and he was allowed to retire.
Former Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins is also apparently involved in the company, according to emails between Montgomery officials and TrafficServe about the contract.
Graboys said in October that it would take the startup company six months to ramp up in Montgomery.
“It would bring us units that would actually respond to minor accidents and handle minor accidents, which would increase response times, of course, to those which would actually help the citizens, and at the same time it would free up our units for other cases as well,” Graboys said at the meeting.
Toussaint said in a sole source letter to Graboys in February 2025 that TrafficServe is the “sole provider capable of delivering an advanced AI-powered motor vehicle accident (MVA) detection system, specifically designed for automatic crash reporting to 911 dispatch centers.”
According to Graboys, Montgomery is the first city where TrafficServe will operate.
By contrast, the city of St. George, La., pays On Scene Services $1.5 million annually and receives a minimum of six cars of traffic investigators, twice the number Montgomery is receiving from a startup company with no track record. They also provide traffic investigation services for New Orleans and Baltimore.
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