A Louisiana father shot and killed eight children — seven of them his own — during a Sunday morning attack that unfolded across two homes in a Shreveport neighborhood, leaving the community shaken by one of the deadliest mass shootings in the country in recent years, police said.
Two women were also shot and critically injured, including the gunman’s wife, who is the mother of the children, according to Shreveport Police Department spokesperson Chris Bordelon. Officials said the children, all killed inside the same house, ranged in age from 3 to 11.
The gunman, identified as 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, died after a police chase ended with officers opening fire, Bordelon said. Authorities have not identified what triggered the violence, but Bordelon noted that investigators believe the shooting was “entirely a domestic incident.”
The attack marks the deadliest mass shooting in the United States in more than two years.
“I just don’t know what to say, my heart is just taken aback,” Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said. “I cannot begin to imagine how such an event could occur.”
Bordelon said officers were familiar with Elkins, who had previously been arrested in a 2019 firearms case, but officials were unaware of any other domestic violence history.
Police said the violence began before sunrise in a neighborhood south of downtown Shreveport, where the suspect first shot a woman at one home before driving to a second location “where this heinous act was carried out.”
Seven children were found dead inside the second house, while another was discovered on the roof after apparently trying to escape, Bordelon said. A different child survived after jumping from the roof and was taken to a hospital.
State Rep. Tammy Phelps said some of the children attempted to flee through the back door. “I can’t even imagine what the police officers, first responders actually dealt with when they got here today,” she said during a news conference.
Family member says suspect was separating from his wife
The victims included three boys and five girls, according to the Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office.
Shamar Elkins and his wife were in the process of separating and were scheduled to appear in court Monday, said Crystal Brown, a cousin of one of the injured women. Brown said the couple had been arguing about the separation before the shooting.
“He murdered his children,” Brown said. “He shot his wife.”
Elkins had four children with his wife and three with another woman who lived nearby and was also shot, Brown said. She added that all the children were together in one house.
Brown described the children as “happy kids, very friendly, very sweet.”
Shamar Elkins appeared to post a photo with his children on Facebook. The children have been cropped out of this image.
A neighbor wakes up to a mass shooting
Liza Demming, who lives two houses away from where most of the victims were shot, said her security camera recorded the suspect running away, along with the sound of two gunshots.
“That’s pretty much all I saw, was him running out of the house and the cars leaving,” she said.
Demming later stepped outside and saw the covered body of a child on the roof of the home.
Pastor Marty T. Johnson Sr. of nearby St. Gabriel Community Baptist Church, who owns one of the homes where the shootings took place, said someone who works for him had rented it to the family, but he had no direct interactions with them.
“What began as a domestic dispute has ended in irreversible harm,” the parish’s district attorney’s office said in a statement.
Shreveport is overwhelmed by grief
This was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since eight people were killed in a Chicago suburb in January 2024, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
At a news conference outside one of the homes where the shooting occurred, officials appeared stunned, asking the community for patience and prayers as they worked through multiple crime scenes.
“This is a tragic situation — maybe the worst tragic situation we’ve ever had,” said Tom Arceneaux, mayor of the northwestern Louisiana city of about 180,000 residents. “It’s a terrible morning.”
Hours after the shooting, people gathered outside the single-story home on 79th Street, leaving flowers in memory of the victims. One door appeared stained with blood. Later that evening, at a nearby prayer vigil, Kimberlin Jackson joined others in the community as they lit candles in a parking lot.
“It just makes you take your children and hug them and hold them and tell them how much you love them,” she said.
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