Authorities in Louisiana are searching for answers after a man shot and killed eight children, including seven of his own, and critically wounded two women, including his wife, in Shreveport, La., early Sunday, in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting 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 at a news conference. “I cannot begin to imagine how such an event could occur.”
The gunman, identified as 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, was killed during a police pursuit after hijacking a car, according to police.
The children, ranging in age from 3 to 11 years, were identified by the coroner’s office as Jayla Elkins, Shayla Elkins, Kayla Pugh, Layla Pugh, Markaydon Pugh, Sariahh Snow, Khedarrion Snow and Braylon Snow.
“Today, our community is grieving the unimaginable loss of innocent children,” Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux said in a statement. “There are no words that can make sense of it, and no distance that shields us from it.“
Authorities did not identify a motive for the shooting, which was described by police as “entirely a domestic incident.”
Crystal Brown, a cousin of one of the women wounded in the shooting, told the Associated Press that Shamar Elkins and his wife were in the middle of separating and were due in court Monday. And family members told the New York Times that Elkins was struggling with mental health problems and had recently expressed suicidal thoughts.
How the shooting unfolded
Police work outside the scene of a mass shooting in Shreveport, La., on April 19.
(Gerald Herbert/AP)
According to police, officers responded to reports of shots fired just after 6 a.m. local time on Sunday in the Cedar Grove neighborhood, south of downtown Shreveport, where Elkins first shot an adult female at one home and drove to another home “where this heinous act was carried out.”
Seven children were killed inside the home; one was found dead on the roof, according to police. Elkins’s wife, Shaneiqua Pugh, was seriously wounded but is expected to survive, according to KSLA-TV. A 13-year-old boy who jumped off the roof was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
Elkins then hijacked a car at gunpoint and fled the scene. Shortly after the carjacking, police located the stolen vehicle and initiated a pursuit that continued into the next parish.
“The pursuit continued into Bossier Parish, where officers ultimately engaged the suspect,” Shreveport Police said in a preliminary incident report. “Officers were forced to discharge their department-issued firearms, neutralizing the suspect, who was pronounced deceased at the scene.”
What we know about the gunman
Shamar Elkins served in the Louisiana Army National Guard as a signal system specialist and a fire support specialist from 2013 to 2020, according to CNN. He was never deployed.
Elkins had at least two prior criminal convictions, according to court records.
In 2019, he was arrested on charges of illegal use of weapons and carrying a firearm on school property. Per CNN, Elkins “pulled a 9-millimeter handgun from his pants and shot at a vehicle five times after the driver of the car pulled a gun on him and ‘took off.’”
According to police, the incident “occurred near a schoolyard where children were playing.” Elkins pleaded guilty and served probation.
Children sit during a prayer vigil for the victims of a mass shooting in Shreveport, La., on April 19.
(Gerald Herbert/AP)
The shooting in Shreveport was the deadliest in the United States since January 2024, when a 23-year-old man fatally shot eight people, including seven of his relatives, in a Chicago suburb.
“Shreveport is not an island,” Arceneaux, the mayor, said. “We are connected — and in moments like this, that connection must mean something. It must mean compassion, it must mean awareness, and it must mean action.”
“We must check on one another,” he added. “We must support those who carry the weight of what they saw and heard today. And we must not ignore the deeper issues — violence in the home, untreated trauma, and the silence that allows both to grow.”
