Police offer minute-by-minute timeline of the mass shooting that left eight children dead

By Zoe Sottile, Lauren Mascarenhas, Isabel Rosales, Maria Sole Campinoti, Taylor Romine, CNN

Shreveport, Louisiana (CNN) — A 31-year-old man shot and killed his seven young children and a cousin and critically wounded his wife and another woman Sunday morning in northwestern Louisiana, authorities said, a shocking act of violence that marks the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in more than two years.

“This is a tragic situation, maybe the worst tragic situation we’ve ever had in Shreveport,” Mayor Tom Arceneaux said in a news conference.

Local leaders gathered Monday and decried the shocking killings that have left a community shaken.

Here’s what we know.

Early morning quiet broken by gunfire

Shamar Elkins shot his wife, another woman and eight children at two separate homes in the area, according to police.

Just before 6 a.m., Shreveport police received a call from someone on the roof of a house on West 79th Street, who said a suspect inside had just shot someone, Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said at a news conference Monday.

A few minutes later, another call came in informing police the suspect was a family member of the caller, and dispatch was told nine people lived at the home, Smith said.

“The caller further stated that the suspect, identified as Shamar Elkins, had shot everyone inside the home at 6 a.m. One minute later, the caller advised that she and her children had fled from the roof and were now in the backyard; 6:01 a.m. officers arrived on the scene,” Smith said.

Minutes later, police received a call about another shooting on Harrison Street. A woman said her boyfriend had shot her, taken her three children and fled the scene, Smith said. The caller identified the suspect as Elkins, and by 6:10 a.m., authorities realized the shootings were connected, the chief said.

Around 6:15 a.m., Elkins, armed with a firearm, carjacked a vehicle — which police believed at the time may have had children inside — and led authorities on a chase into Bossier Parish, police said. Elkins was using a rifle during the incident, Shreveport Police Cpl. Chris Bordelon said.

At 6:29 a.m., officers shot Elkins, who was pronounced dead at the scene at 7:03 a.m., Smith said.

The youngest victim, Jayla Elkins, was just 3 years old, authorities said.

The other children killed are Shayla Elkins, 5; Kayla Pugh, 6; Layla Pugh, 7; Markaydon Pugh, 10; Sariahh Snow, 11; Khedarrion Snow, 6; and Braylon Snow, 5, according to the Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office.

Elkins’ wife has “very serious injuries,” Bordelon told CNN affiliate KSLA. The other woman has “life-threatening injuries,” he added; her name has not yet been released.

As the shooting unfolded, some of the children tried to escape out the back door, state Rep. Tammy Phelps said during a news conference with other city officials.

Bullet holes could be seen in the back door of one of the homes on Monday.

Authorities say they are continuing to investigate the incident, which spanned multiple scenes and jurisdiction, adding to the challenge for investigators.

Family says gunman had rocky marriage

Elkins married his wife, 34-year-old Shaneiqua Pugh, about two years ago, public records show.

Pugh had filed for a divorce for infidelity, said Troy Brown, the husband of one of the women who was shot and father to one of the deceased children.

Elkins had recently stayed at the local VA hospital to get treatment for mental health issues, Brown and Pugh’s cousin Crystal Brown told CNN.

“Everything like to him, was falling apart, and I would constantly talk to my brother-in-law. ‘Let’s sit outside. Let’s play dominoes. Let’s play cards. Let’s go for a walk,’” Brown said. After Brown encouraged him to get help, Elkins stayed at the hospital for about a week and a half.

“It was something personal. It didn’t have nothing to do with my family,” Brown said. “He came home. He was happy. He loved his kids.”

When Pugh and Elkins started their divorce paperwork, Brown said Elkins was having a hard time. Brown asked if Elkins needed to go back to the hospital, but Elkins allegedly told him, “He like, No, I’m OK. I’m just gonna deal with it.”

“I wish he went ahead and got the help,” Brown said.

Elkins and Pugh were supposed to go to court Monday to sign the papers, Crystal Brown said.

Troy Brown was in tears Monday while talking about his son, who died in the shooting. “I’m never gonna get to throw the football with him again,” he said.

His wife fractured bones from falling off the roof, Brown said. She is out of surgery and is doing ok, he said. His 12-year-old daughter also fell off the roof while trying to escape but just has some scratched, he said. Police previously said it was a teenage boy who fell off the roof trying to escape.

The shooting is so shocking to Brown because when he left for work at 9 p.m. Saturday, Elkins “was calm,” he said.

Freddie Montgomery, who lives across the street from the family’s home, told CNN he saw Elkins sitting on his front porch Saturday as the children played in the yard, about 12 hours before the shooting.

Montgomery waved and Elkins waved back, he said.

“What type of father would do this to his children?” Montgomery asked.

Pugh had recently told her uncle, Lionel Pugh, that she was planning on getting a divorce from Elkins, he told CNN. He was surprised because “everything seemed fine,” he said.

Lionel Pugh was getting ready to head to work when he got a call about the shooting. “It was devastating … I got here and all I can see is just yellow tape, a crime scene,” he said, adding “they was just regular little sweet kids.”

“She said she was running for her life,” Lionel Pugh told The Associated Press about a conversation he had with one the women who was shot. “The only ones he didn’t kill was the ones who got away.”

Elkins posted a photo of himself with his children on his Facebook page on April 5, saying he had attended an Easter church service for the first time with all of his children.

Four days later, he reposted an inspirational prayer from another Facebook page that began, “Dear God, Today I ask You to help me guard my mind and my emotions.”

The prayer also asks for strength to “reject” depression, anger, anxiety and panic.

Elkins was in the Louisiana Army National Guard as a signal support system specialist and a fire support specialist, an Army spokesperson told CNN. He was never deployed and left the Army in 2020 as a private.

He had at least two prior criminal convictions in Caddo District Court, records show. He was arrested in March 2019 on a charge of illegal use of weapons and carrying a firearm on school property and driving while intoxicated in 2016.

In the 2019 incident, a police officer wrote in an arrest report that 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.” The shooting occurred near a schoolyard where children were playing, the officer wrote, according to the court documents.

Leader calls killing ‘the result when someone snaps’

By Monday morning, a memorial filled with flowers, balloons and stuffed animals could be seen in front of the family’s home, where community members trickled in and out throughout the day. Some prayed. Others cried.

A local school bus attendant, who lives on the other side of town, stopped by the home early Monday morning with flowers and balloons to offer her condolences.

“We just wanted to come and do something. It might not be a whole lot, but it’s something,” she told CNN.

City Councilmember Tabatha Taylor told CNN’s Phil Mattingly that domestic violence in her community is “staggering,” with 30% of homicides being related to domestic violence, and the growing group of women affected are African American.

Investigators will determine whether this was a case of family annihilation — a deliberate attempt to wipe out one’s family all at once — former FBI Deputy Director and CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe said.

“I think the work to be done now is to go back and try to see those signs that were there for family members for likely his spouse, for friends, for others,” McCabe said, “and work with the community on better understanding what steps to take when someone around you is spiraling into that sort of a depression.”

The shooting is the deadliest in the US since January 2024, when a 23-year-old man shot eight people, most of them his relatives, in a Chicago suburb.

There have been at least 114 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.

Shreveport’s mayor described the scene in the city of just over 180,000 people as “horrific,” and told CNN the shooting “rattles the entire city.”

“Our community is grieving the unimaginable loss of innocent children. There are no words that can make sense of it, and no distance that shields us from it,” Arceneaux said in a statement, urging the community to come together to support one another.

“We must not ignore the deeper issues – violence in the home, untreated trauma, and the silence that allows both to grow,” he wrote.

Love One Louisiana Foundation, which also supported families who were impacted in a New Year’s attack on Bourbon Street, will help pay for the funerals, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry announced, and the Community Foundation of North Louisiana will help support the family that survived, said CEO Kristi Gustavson.

The eight children’s deaths more than double the number of homicides in Shreveport and Caddo Parish this year, according to the coroner’s office.

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CNN’s Chris Boyette, Alaa Elassar, Leah Asmelash, Amanda Jackson, Sharif Paget, Andy Rose, Sneha Dhandapani and Cindy Von Quednow contributed to this report.