“I was with my grandbabies the other day, and we was having so much fun. I say for any grandparent out there, be happy with your grandkids and have fun with them. I’m just praying that everything will be all right for my daughter. She’s in a hospital right now. She’s fighting.”

Those words came from a grandfather who had just learned that eight of his grandchildren were gone. A man who had been laughing with them just days earlier was now standing in front of cameras, trying to hold himself together. He couldn’t. Nobody could.

“To wake up and to hear this kind of news that someone would shoot eight children, eight innocent children—it’s just unreal.”

“Eight children that are deceased. I can’t be strong for you. I think about the mother and what this family has lost. I think about this community and what this community has lost. And I don’t have the words to give you. And I’m sorry.”

On the morning of April 19th, 2026, in Shreveport, Louisiana, officers responded to what they were told was a domestic disturbance. By the time the scene was fully processed, they discovered that the incident was something that felt impossible to hold onto. Ten people had been shot. Seven of them were his own children. One of the other people injured was his wife, Sheniqua Elkins.

In the weeks leading up to that morning, Sheniqua had been making a string of posts on social media that seemed to point to one thing: she was done. Reportedly, that was what set everything in motion. Neighbors described him as a good and present father—someone who showed up for his kids. Just weeks before, this same man had been smiling for photos with his children. Now, he was at the center of this tragedy with those same kids in body bags on West 79th Street.

Shamar Elkins grew up and built his life in Shreveport. He was thirty-one years old and had already served in the United States Army. Sheniqua Elkins had posted a photo of him in his uniform back in 2016, writing that she had been waiting for him to come home. They had been together for a long time and stayed together for years after.

They officially made it legal on April 9th, 2024, which also happened to be Sheniqua’s birthday. She posted about it that same day: “We finally made it official. I got married on my birthday.”

By 2025, they had been together for ten years, had four daughters, and a marriage that was only a year old at that point. On April 10th, 2025, Sheniqua marked their first wedding anniversary on Facebook. “Happy first anniversary to us. I thank you for everything that you did for me today. I enjoyed every moment of it, Shamar Elkins. Ten long years and four beautiful girls. What a time we had.”

One of the things that made this family complicated from the outside was the last names. Shamar had children across multiple households. Four of his daughters with Sheniqua carried the Elkins name. But there were other children—children who carried the last names Pew and Snow. All of those children were part of his world. He did not keep them separate, at least not on the surface. He showed up for all of them, posted about all of them, and by all visible accounts, presented himself as a father who was present.

On April 5th, 2026, Shamar posted a photo of himself outside a church with his seven children all dressed up. He was smiling like a man who had everything. The caption read: “Happy Easter. Had a wonderful time at church for the first time with all my kids. What a blessed day.”

But underneath that image, something had been pulling at this family for a while. The social media trail tells a story that, looking back, is very hard to look away from.

Back in March 2026, Shamar shared a post from a Facebook page. The post asked fathers a question: if they could go back in time and have their same kids with a different woman, would they do it? Shamar responded publicly: “Hell yeah, I would.”

He was a married man, and he said that publicly on his own Facebook page.

Four days later, on March 12th, Shamar posted something brief but striking. It simply read: “Understand to be misunderstood.” No context, no explanation. Just those four words.

Then came April, and things started to shift more visibly from Sheniqua’s end. On April 8th, she shared a post that read: “When a woman replaces you with peace and not another man, it is really over for you.”

Then on April 10th, she shared another post. This one was longer: “For the first time in my life, I do not want to be nobody’s woman or wife. I know what it feels like to be a wife. To cook, clean, hold it down, share your bed, your space, your whole life. To pour into a man daily and still make sure everything is straight. I do not want to wash no man’s clothes. I do not want to share my bed. I do not want to hear ‘what are we eating’ every day. I do not want to adjust my peace for nobody. I am not bitter. I am just done playing that role right now. I am choosing me, my peace, and my freedom. And I am not explaining that to nobody.”

Sheniqua was done. That much was clear from her own words. Reportedly, people close to the situation confirmed the same thing. She had made up her mind.

Three days later, on April 13th, she shared one more post: “The crazy part is I do not even hate you. I just do not feel you anymore. That love turned into lessons, and them lessons turned into distance. So now you’re finally ready, and I am finally done. That is what bad timing looks like.”

Three posts in less than a week. Each one more direct than the last. She was communicating very clearly in her own way that this chapter was closing.

Now, while all of this was playing out online, Shamar posted something that at the time probably looked like any other father-daughter moment. On April 17th, 2026, he took his oldest daughter out for a one-on-one lunch date—just the two of them. He posted a photo of her in the car eating and wrote that he had to catch her off guard to make it happen.

Two days later, in the early hours of April 19th, 2026, the domestic situation that had been building between Shamar and Sheniqua reached a point that no one could have fully anticipated. The sequence of events, as pieced together by investigators, started on Harrison Street, a few blocks away from the main residence on West 79th Street.

That was where Sheniqua was. Shamar went there first, and she was shot at that location. Her injuries were serious—described by police as life-threatening.

Shamar did not stop at Harrison Street. From there, he went to the residence on the 300 block of West 79th Street, the home where the children were. And that is where the scale of what he did became something that officers who arrived on scene said they had never encountered in their entire careers.

Seven children were found inside that home. An eighth child was found outside in the area between the house and the back of the property. All eight of them lost their lives. Seven of them were Shamar’s own biological children. The eighth was their cousin.

A second adult woman was also shot at the West 79th Street location. She too was in critical condition. The thirteen-year-old boy who had escaped from the Harrison Street location had jumped from a roof at some point during the ordeal. He sustained injuries but survived and is expected to recover.

After the incident, Shamar left the scene and carjacked a vehicle just down the road at the corner of West 79th Street and Lynwood Avenue. Shreveport police patrol officers located the vehicle, and a chase began—from Shreveport across the parish line and into neighboring Bossier City. The chase ended when officers discharged their firearms, and Shamar Elkins was pronounced deceased at the scene. Louisiana State Police took over that portion of the investigation.

By the time the full scene was processed, investigators were working across four locations: the Harrison Street residence, the two homes on West 79th Street, and the site in Bossier City where Shamar was shot by police. Chris Bordelon of the Shreveport Police Department described it as one of the most extensive crime scenes the department had ever encountered.

This incident became the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in more than two years. In a single morning, it had doubled Shreveport’s total count for the entire year.

The Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office worked to formally identify all eight children.

Jayla Elkins, three years old. Shayla Elkins, five years old. Cadarian Snow, six years old. Kayla Pew, six years old. Leila Pew, seven years old. Brilan Snow, five years old. Marcaden Pew, ten years old. Sariah Snow, eleven years old.

The community gathered outside that home on West 79th Street—neighbors, strangers, people who had no direct connection to the family but felt the weight of what had happened in their city.

“Right now, we have at least ten individuals that were struck by gunfire last night in a domestic disturbance,” police said at a press conference. “Eight of these individuals are deceased. The ages of the deceased are from one year of age to approximately fourteen years of age. All of the deceased in this case are juveniles.”

You heard people wailing when they received the news from the Shreveport, Louisiana police. Later, the news got even worse.

“I can tell you that seven of the eight children that were killed are believed to be his children. We are still working to determine a complete motive and understanding as to why this happened.”

“There’s no understanding of a father murdering his own children.”

A man who identified himself as the father of one of the female victims and the grandfather of some of the children spoke through visible grief. “I was just with my grandbabies the other day, and we was having so much fun. I say for any grandparent out there, be happy with your grandkids and have fun with them. I’m just praying that everything will be all right for my daughter. She’s in a hospital right now. She’s fighting.”

Councilwoman Taylor addressed the community directly. Her voice cracked. Her hands trembled. But she did not look away from the cameras.

“We’re standing in this place again. There are eight children that are deceased. I can’t be strong for you. I think about the mother and what this family has lost. I think about this community and what this community has lost. And I don’t have the words to give you. And I’m sorry.”

She paused, collecting herself. “I don’t know what people think in the crevices of their mind to want to harm another human being, let alone that of children who have their whole life ahead of them.”

“From what I’ve learned about this incident, it’s domestic in nature. That makes it even more horrific. For all the fighting that we do as it relates to this, maybe you can stand strong with this, but I can’t without shedding tears of traumatic pain. I pain and I grieve for this family. I grieve for the lives that are lost.”

“I’m asking you to please utilize every resource that the sheriff has brought forth. Now, when you know that these situations occur, we cannot be and make this a joke. This is not a freaking joke. This is real. And this is the result when someone snaps.”

“So, I’m going to ask the community, along with prayer, with every mental health consultant, counselor that is out here—this family and this community needs you. I need you. Because how do we get through this? How do we get to the next level? It is real, and this is raw. And these are the tragedies when there are domestic violence or domestic disturbances in our community.”

In total, detectives say thirty-one-year-old Shamar Elkins shot ten people in three different locations. Seven of the eight juvenile victims were killed inside a home, the eighth on the roof while trying to escape. The two people who survived, police say, are Elkins’s wife and girlfriend. Both shot in the head. Both in critical condition.

“All I can tell you today is my heart is saddened. It has brought me to my knees—and of course that’s a great place to be, because then we can communicate with God.”

When police moved in to arrest him, they say he carjacked a person at gunpoint. Officers gave chase, catching up to him, then shooting and killing Elkins. The multiple crime scenes were described by investigators as gruesome—a word they do not use lightly.

A pastor stood before the gathered crowd and offered what comfort he could. “I communicated with the spirit of the Lord before I got here as to what is it that I can say when you really don’t know what to say, when whatever you say may not make sense.”

He recited the Serenity Prayer. “God grant us the serenity to accept the things that we cannot change, change the things that we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Then he turned to scripture. “He says in Romans 8:28, ‘And we know that all things work together for the good to those who love God, those who are called according to His purpose.’”

“All I can tell you today is my heart is saddened. It has brought me to my knees—and of course that’s a great place to be, because then we can communicate with God some kind of way. Some way and somehow, this is going to work out for the good—if no more than bringing the community together to be able to go around and touch the bloody and the dusty people that feel like there’s no hope.”

“People that feel like the only hope that I can have is to take my life and take eight or nine others. So I ask that you would be prayerful that God would bring us together. This could be the one thing that would bring this city, our neighborhoods, our country together—that we will have one voice with one people to know that you can make a difference. It’s just saying a kind word to one another.”

“Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but the Lord has said, ‘I come to bring life, and I come to bring the abundant life.’ And I just like to say to everybody today, keep the faith and keep hope. Because if we come together, if we come together right now, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we will make a difference.”

He led the crowd in prayer. “Lord, we ask that you’d come in our midst—touch our hearts, souls, and mind. Lord, we ask that you would lift those up that’s connected. We ask that you lift those up that’s not connected. And let us all know that we come from one blood. Lord, touch the hearts of the families all over this city. Lord, we just ask that you touch them and let them know that you can and you will take care. Be not dismayed. Whatever betide, if you put your trust in the Lord, He will take care.”

“The only words I have for you today is the words coming from the word of God where He says, ‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Lean not unto our own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path.’ And today we are leaning on Jesus. We are trusting that some good, some way, somehow will come out of this situation.”

“Sometimes in life we wonder why bad things happen to good people. We don’t know, but we’ll understand it better by and by.”

He referenced Psalm 73. “Asaph says, ‘Truly God is good to Israel, good to anybody of a clean heart.’ But Asaph was going through something like this in his life. He says, ‘But as for me, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked, when I saw how wicked people were thriving and they were doing this, that, and the other,’ he said, ‘my foot almost slipped.’”

“But he didn’t stop there. If you keep on reading down about the seventeenth verse, he says, ‘Until I went into the sanctuary of the Lord. Then I saw their end—that they in slippery places.’”

“So that brings me to this. The only hope that we have is in the Lord. Sometimes we look for this and we look for that, but our hope is in the Lord. And I just like for us to leave here knowing that God will take care.”

The Shreveport Police Department confirmed that before April 19th, they had one previous documented interaction with Shamar Elkins. When they looked back at that history, there was nothing in it that would have signaled what he was capable of doing.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry issued a public statement saying he and First Lady Sharon were heartbroken over the events in Shreveport. He wrote that they were praying for everyone affected and expressed gratitude to the law enforcement officers and first responders working the scene.

On April 9th, just ten days before the shooting, Shamar had shared a prayer. It was a lengthy post asking God to guard his mind and his emotions.

Mayor Tom Arceneaux, who was present at the scene from the early part of the investigation, addressed the community directly. He called it, in his own words, “maybe the worst tragic situation Shreveport has ever faced.”

Councillor Taylor stood in front of the gathered crowd, her voice raw and unguarded. “There are eight children that are deceased,” she said. “I can’t be strong for you. I think about the mother and what this family has lost. I think about this community and what this community has lost. And I don’t have the words to give you. And I’m sorry.”

She looked directly into the cameras. “I don’t know what people think in the crevices of their mind to want to harm another human being, let alone that of children who have their whole life ahead of them.”

“From what I’ve learned about this incident, it’s domestic in nature. That makes it even more horrific. For all the fighting that we do as it relates to this, maybe you can stand strong with this, but I can’t without shedding tears of traumatic pain. I pain and I grieve for this family. I grieve for the lives that are lost.”

“I’m asking you to please utilize every resource that the sheriff has brought forth. When you know that these situations occur, we cannot make this a joke. This is not a joke. This is real. This is the result when someone snaps.”

“So I’m going to ask the community, along with prayer, with every mental health consultant and counselor that is out here—this family and this community needs you. I need you. Because how do we get through this? How do we get to the next level?”

“It is real, and this is raw. These are the tragedies when there are domestic violence or domestic disturbances in our community.”

In the days that followed, the city of Shreveport tried to comprehend what had happened. Counselors were brought in. Crisis teams were deployed. The flags were lowered to half-staff. But no amount of counseling could undo what had been done. No flag could bring back the eight children who had been taken in a single morning.

Sheniqua Elkins survived. She is recovering from her injuries—both physical and otherwise. But she will never recover the children she lost. The seven children who carried her last name and the ones who didn’t—they were all hers in the ways that mattered. She had raised them, loved them, fought for them. And now they were gone.

The grandfather who had spoken so painfully at the press conference—who had been laughing with his grandbabies just days before—now had to plan funerals. Eight of them. Little caskets. Tiny obituaries. Balloons released into the sky by hands too small to understand why.

Jayla was three. She had just learned to tie her shoes. Shayla was five. She was in kindergarten. Cadarian was six. He loved dinosaurs. Kayla was six. She had a gap-toothed smile that her grandmother said could light up a room. Leila was seven. She wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. Brilan was five. He followed his older siblings around like a shadow, desperate to be included. Marcaden was ten. He was the big brother—the one who protected the younger ones. Sariah was eleven. She had started writing in a journal, filling it with dreams.

Now that journal sits somewhere in a room that will never be the same. A mother fights for her life in a hospital bed. A father lies in a morgue. And eight children—eight children who had no say in any of this—are gone.

The community gathered again on Sunday. Church services were filled with tears and embraces. People who had never met the family showed up anyway, bringing food, bringing flowers, bringing money for funeral expenses. They did not know what else to do. There was nothing else to do.

In his final days, Shamar Elkins had posted a prayer asking God to guard his mind. He had taken his daughter out for lunch, smiling for a photo that now serves as a memorial. He had gone to church on Easter Sunday with all seven of his children and called it a blessed day.

Two days later, he ended their lives.

The warning signs were there—scattered across social media, buried in posts that seemed vague at the time but now read like a manual for collapse. “Understand to be misunderstood.” The public answer about having his same kids with a different woman. Sheniqua’s posts about choosing peace, about being done, about love turning into distance.

They were communicating in plain sight. But no one—not their friends, not their family, not the police who had only one documented interaction with him—could have predicted that a domestic disturbance would turn into the deadliest mass shooting the country had seen in over two years.

But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we have stopped looking for the signs. Maybe we have convinced ourselves that what happens behind closed doors stays there. Maybe we have normalized dysfunction to the point where we no longer recognize the difference between a troubled relationship and a ticking clock.

Shamar Elkins did not snap. Not really. Snapping implies a single moment—an abrupt break from a steady baseline. What he did took planning. He went to two locations. He brought a weapon. He knew where Sheniqua was. He knew where the children were. He drove from Harrison Street to West 79th Street. He did not stop. He did not hesitate.

The grandfather’s voice still echoes from that press conference, shaky and raw, a man who had just learned that his grandchildren would not be coming home. “I was with my grandbabies the other day, and we was having so much fun. I say for any grandparent out there, be happy with your grandkids and have fun with them.”

Because tomorrow, they might not be there. Because a man who smiled in family photos and posted about Easter Sunday and went to church with all his children can still be capable of something unspeakable. Because the warning signs are only visible in hindsight, and by the time we see them clearly, it’s already too late.

The flags will go back up. The news cycle will move on. Another city will experience its own tragedy, and the world will turn its attention there. But for the families of Jayla, Shayla, Cadarian, Kayla, Leila, Brilan, Marcaden, and Sariah—for the grandfather who can’t stop seeing their faces, for the grandmother who will never hear their laughter again, for the mother fighting for her life in a hospital room—there is no moving on.

There is only survival.

And the question that will haunt them forever: why?