SHREVEPORT, Louisiana — Eight children ranging in age from 1 to about 14 were killed here Sunday in a shooting that police described as a domestic disturbance. It was the deadliest mass killing in the United States in two years, data shows.
A spokesman for the Shreveport police, Chris Bordelon, told reporters Sunday that seven of the children were believed to be “descendants of the gunman” and that two other victims survived. “This is an extensive scene unlike anything most of us have ever seen,” Bordelon said.
Later Sunday, police identified the gunman as Shamar Elkins. Public records show that Elkins was a 31-year-old Shreveport resident. Elkins served in the Louisiana Army National Guard from August 2013 to August 2020, according to an Army statement. He did not deploy while with the National Guard and left the Army as a private, an entry-level rank.
Elkins’s brother-in-law, Troy Brown, who lived with him, said Elkins’s wife had recently sought a divorce. Brown said Elkins acted normally on Saturday, the last time they saw each other, but had been distraught in a recent conversation about his marriage breaking up.
“After the first argument about the divorce, he acted like he was losing his mind,” Brown said late Sunday after leaving a Shreveport hospital where he had visited Elkins’s wife and two of his own family members who were injured in the shooting. “He was upset about it. I would talk to him and he would tell me, ‘Bro, I don’t want to lose my wife.’”
Police said the gunman stole a car after the shootings, leading to a police chase into neighboring Bossier City that ended with his death. Louisiana State Police are investigating Elkins’s killing.
Bordelon said officers responded to a report of a shooting just after 6 a.m. and that the crime scene spread across four locations: three residences and the area where the gunman died. The shooting was domestic in nature, he said, and the gunman was an adult. No motive has been identified.
“We do believe him to be the only individual that fired gunshots at these locations here,” Bordelon said.
Troy Brown said he and his wife and their two children lived in a house on 79th Street with Elkins, his wife and their four children. Elkins had three other children with a different woman who lived close by, according to Brown and his cousin, Crystal Brown-Paige.
Brown-Paige, who visited survivors at the hospital Sunday with her cousin, said all seven of Elkins’s children were at the home on 79th Street early Sunday when the shooting began, and all were killed. One of Troy Brown’s children, a 10-year-old boy was killed as well.
“I wasn’t aware he had a gun,” Brown said of Elkins. “If I would’ve known a gun was inside the home, I would have got rid of it.”
Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux told The Washington Post that the survivors included a woman in stable condition and a teenager with a broken leg who is recovering.
Arceneaux told reporters that the attack has devastated Shreveport. “This affects the entire community, so we all mourn with these families,” he said. “This is a tragic situation, maybe the worst tragic situation we’ve ever had. … It’s a terrible morning in Shreveport.”
The city is working to provide counseling services to classmates of the victims as well as first responders, the mayor said. A vigil is being planned.
“We’re attempting to … find out where the children attend schools so that we can have counselors available,” Arceneaux said, adding: “There is no explanation for something as horrific as this, but we need to provide comfort to the students, comfort to their friends, comfort to the community.”
Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith told reporters that he couldn’t even “begin to imagine how such an event can occur.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who was born in and represents the Shreveport area in Congress, called the shooting a “heartbreaking tragedy” and said his team is in touch with law enforcement.
“We’re holding the victims, their families and loved ones, and our Shreveport community close in our thoughts and prayers during this incredibly difficult time,” Johnson said in a statement on X. “And we are grateful to the Shreveport, Bossier, and Louisiana State Police for their swift response.”
The shooting was the deadliest U.S. mass killing since January 2024, when a man killed eight people in Joliet, Illinois. All but one of the victims in that incident were relatives of the shooter and ranged in age from 14 to 47.
Though domestic-violence shootings generally receive less media attention, data shows that in most mass killings that involve guns, the shooters knew at least some of their victims.
Nearly two-thirds of victims since 2006 were family members or acquaintances of their killers, according to a Washington Post tracker based on data compiled and maintained by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. Six other mass killings have occurred this year with a total of 28 victims, according to the Post analysis. (The Post defines mass killings as incidents in which four or more people have been killed.) Each of the six mass killings was carried out by someone who knew the victims, who ranged in age from 7 to 67.
All six incidents occurred in southern states near Louisiana: three in Texas, one in Mississippi, one in Georgia and one in Florida.
On Sunday, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) said in a statement that he and his wife, Sharon, are “heartbroken over this horrific situation, and we’re praying for everyone affected.”
“We’re deeply grateful to the law enforcement officers and first responders working tirelessly on the scene,” Landry said.
The Rev. Lorenzo T. Neal, a volunteer with the Shreveport chapter of the anti-gun violence group Moms Demand Action, said Sunday that the shooting occurred close to his church.
“I am holding these families and this community I love in prayer, and will keep advocating to end gun violence so this never happens again,” he said in a written statement.
Mariana Alfano and Chris Hacker reported from Washington. Daniel Wu and Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.
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