Shreveport, Louisiana– A Louisiana father fatally shot eight children, including seven of his own, in an attack on his family Sunday morning that spread through two homes in a Shreveport neighborhood rocked by one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings in recent years, police said.
Two women, including the gunman’s wife, the mother of their children, were also shot and seriously injured, according to Shreveport Police Department spokesman Chris Bordelon. Officials said the children who were all killed in the same house were between 3 and 11 years old.
According to Bordelon, the gunman, identified as 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, died after a police chase that ended with officers shooting him. Authorities have not said what might have sparked the violence, but Bordelon said investigators are confident the shooting was an “entirely domestic incident.”
This attack was the deadliest mass shooting incident the United States has witnessed in more than two years.
“I don’t know what to say, my heart is broken,” Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said. “I can’t imagine how such an event could happen.”
Bordelon said police are aware of Elkins, who was arrested in a 2019 firearms case, but said officials are not aware of any other domestic violence cases.
Elkins previously served in the Louisiana Army National Guard for seven years, according to an Army official. He never deployed and left the Army as a soldier in 2020, the official said.
Elkins appeared posting a photo with his children on Facebook.
Shamar Elkins appeared posting a photo with his children on Facebook. The children have been cropped out of this photo.
The attacks began before sunrise in a south-central Shreveport neighborhood when the suspect shot a woman in one home and then drove to the other location “where this heinous act was carried out,” police said.
Bordelon said that seven children were killed inside the second house, and one of them was found dead on the roof after apparently trying to escape. Another child jumped from the roof and was expected to survive after being taken to hospital.
State Rep. Tammy Phelps said some of the children tried to escape through the back door. “I can’t even imagine what police officers and first responders actually dealt with when they got here today,” she said at a news conference.
A family member says the suspect was separating from his wife
The victims were three boys and five girls, according to the Caddo Parish coroner’s office.
Crystal Brown, a cousin of one of the injured women, said Shamar Elkins and his wife were in the middle of a separation and were scheduled to appear in court on Monday. The couple had been arguing about a breakup before the shooting, Brown said.
“He killed his children,” Brown said. “He shot his wife.”
Elkins shared four children with his wife and three children with another woman who lived nearby and was also shot, according to Brown. She said that all the children were together in one house.
Brown described all the children as “happy kids, very friendly, very sweet.”
The children, siblings and one of their cousins, including three boys and five girls between the ages of 3 and 11, were identified by their mothers as 3-year-old Jayla Elkins, 5-year-old Sheila Elkins, 6-year-old Kayla Pugh, 7-year-old Layla Pugh, 10-year-old Markedon Pugh and 6-year-old Sariah Snow, police said. Khadarion Snow and 5-year-old Braylon Snow.
A neighbor wakes up to a mass shooting
Lisa Deming, who lives two houses down from where most of the victims were killed, said her security camera captured video of the suspect running away, as well as the sound of two shots.
“That’s pretty much all I saw was people coming out of the house and cars leaving,” she said.
Deming then went outside and saw the body of a child covered on the roof of the house.
Pastor Marty T. said: Johnson Sr., of nearby St. Gabriel Community Baptist Church, who owns one of the homes where the shooting occurred, said someone he worked for had rented it to the family, but he had never dealt with them.
“What began as a domestic dispute ended with irreparable damage,” the diocese prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Shreveport is awash in grief
It 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 the home where one of the shootings occurred, officials appeared stunned and asked for patience and prayers from the community as they sorted through the multiple crime scenes.
“This is a tragic situation, perhaps the worst tragic situation we have ever seen,” said Tom Arsenault, mayor of the northwestern Louisiana city with a population of about 180,000. “It’s a terrible morning.”
Hours after the shooting, mourners gathered outside the one-story home on 79th Street and laid flowers. One of the doors appeared to be stained with blood. Later that evening, at a nearby prayer vigil, Kimberlynn Jackson joined other community members who lit candles for the victims in a parking lot.
“It makes you take your kids and hug them and hold them and tell them how much you love them,” she said.
___
This story has been corrected to attribute statements about the shooting to police spokesman Chris Bordelon, not Police Chief Wayne Smith, and the ages of the children killed have been corrected based on officials’ updates.
ABC News contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.