Eight children have been shot dead in the American state of Louisiana in what authorities have described as the deadliest mass shooting in the United States so far in 2026, after a 31-year-old man opened fire during a domestic dispute in the city of Shreveport before being killed by police.
Shreveport police identified the suspect as Shamar Elkins, who fatally shot his seven children and a cousin, and critically wounded two women, including his wife, in a rampage across at least two locations before sunrise on Sunday, April 19.
Police responded to the 300 block of West 79th Street just after 6 a.m. following reports of a domestic disturbance. Officers found seven children dead inside a home and an eighth dead on a back roof. A teenager suffered non-life-threatening injuries after falling from the roof, and two women were shot, one of them Elkins’ wife, who was shot in the face but was alive on Sunday. The other woman, believed to be a girlfriend, had life-threatening injuries.
The Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office identified the eight victims, all shot and killed at a home in Shreveport’s Cedar Grove neighbourhood. Three boys and five girls, ranging in age from three to eleven years old, were named as Jayla Elkins, Shayla Elkins, Kayla Pugh, Layla Pugh, Markaydon Pugh, Sariahh Snow, Khedarrion Snow, and Braylon Snow.
A small-caliber handgun was used in some of the violence and a rifle-style pistol was found on Elkins when police confronted him. Police said it appears many of the children were shot in their sleep, most of them shot in the head.
Following the shooting, Elkins carjacked a vehicle and led police on a high-speed chase into neighbouring Bossier Parish, where he was shot and killed by officers. No officers were injured.
Elkins had served in the Louisiana Army National Guard from August 2013 to August 2020 as a Signal Support System Specialist and a Fire Support Specialist, with no deployment record, and left the military as a private.
Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux called it possibly the worst tragedy the city had ever faced. Police Chief Wayne Smith said he could not begin to imagine how such an event could occur. Louisiana State Police are separately investigating the officer-involved shooting of the suspect.
