NEW DETAILS: Louisiana father kills 8 children in mass shooting Sunday morning

Police enter a house in Shreveport, La., that is one of the locations tied to a mass shooting Sunday, April 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) — A gunman in Louisiana killed eight children, including seven of his own, and shot two other people Sunday in an early morning attack of domestic violence carried out across two houses, authorities said, shaking a Shreveport neighborhood in one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings in more than two years.

Those killed ranged in age from 1 to about 12 years old, and one of the adults wounded was the mother of some of the suspect’s children, said Shreveport Police Department spokesperson Chris Bordelon. The suspect, whom Bordelon identified as Shamar Elkins, died after a police pursuit.

Investigators did not say what may have set off the violence. Bordelon said there was still much to investigate but that detectives were confident the shooting was “entirely a domestic incident.”

“This is an extensive scene unlike anything most of us have ever seen,” Bordelon said.

He said Elkins had been known to police and was arrested in 2019 in a firearms case. Officials were not aware of any other domestic violence issues.

Officers fired at the suspect during a chase after he carjacked a vehicle at gunpoint, Bordelon said.

Police said the attacks began before sunrise in a neighborhood south of downtown Shreveport when the suspect shot a woman at one home and then drove to the other location “where this heinous act was carried out.”