A father has killed seven of his children and an unrelated child in the US city of Shreveport, Louisiana, in a mass shooting that police have called a “domestic disturbance”.
Officers said the shooting began about 05:00 (10:00 GMT) on Sunday. After attacking the children at a property, the suspect drove away in a stolen car, police said. Officers then chased and killed him.
Two adult women, including the children’s mother, are in critical condition after they, too, were hurt by gunfire.And a ninth child was taken to hospital after jumping from the roof of the home while escaping.
The suspect was identified as Shamar Elkins, Shreveport mayor’s communications director told the BBC.
“We do believe him to be the only individual that fired gunshots at these locations,” said Shreveport Police Department spokesperson Chris Bordelon in a news conference earlier on Sunday.
Officials have not yet suggested a motive on the gunman’s part.
Three boys and five girls, aged between three to 11, were shot and killed, the coroner’s office said, according to the BBC’s US partner, CBS News.
Local police had earlier said on Sunday the children ranged in age from one to 14.
Neighbours described their shock to US media. Mack London, 71, told NBC News he had lived in the area for decades and that “nothing like this has ever happened on this street”.
The attack occurred across multiple locations. The father is alleged to have first shot a woman, before moving to a second location where he fired further shots at the children.
One of the victims was able to run away to a nearby home and called the authorities, police said.
Members of the family told US media that Elkins was facing a split from his wife.
Elkins’s brother-in-law Troy Brown, told the Washington Post that he lived with the attacker, and that Elkins had been upset after his wife requested a divorce. “After the first argument about the divorce, he acted like he was losing his mind,” he told the newspaper.
Crystal Brown, a cousin of one of the wounded women, told the AP news agency that the couple were separating and had been due to appear in court on Monday.
“He murdered his children… he shot his wife,” she said.
In Sunday’s press conference, Bordelon said officers attended a home shortly before 06:00 local time and found the bodies of the children.
He said officers determined the call had been “domestic in nature”.
The suspect is alleged to have stolen the vehicle in which he attempted to flee from the attack in the Cedar Grove district of the city.
Officers followed him to another neighbourhood, Bossier Parish, where they fired at him.
The incident is the deadliest mass shooting in the US since January 2024, when eight victims were killed in Joliet, Illinois, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a nonprofit that tracks US gun violence.
GVA defines a mass shooting as an incident where four or more victims were shot, not including the suspect.
Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux said it was “maybe the worst tragic situation we’ve ever had in Shreveport”.
Arceneaux went on to say: “We have hurting families, we have hurting police officers, coroners’ personnel.
“This affects the entire community, so we all mourn with these families.”
Grayson Boucher, a local councillor, said more than 30% of crimes and 30% of murders in the city were “domestic in relation”, adding: “Now that number has gone up.”
“We’ve more than doubled our homicide in the city of Shreveport because of one act of domestic violence,” he said.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said he and his wife were “heartbroken over this horrific situation, and we’re praying for everyone affected”.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson, who represents Louisiana’s Fourth District, has also commented on the “heartbreaking tragedy”.
“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,” he said. (BBC News)
