SHREVEPORT, La.—A stunned Louisiana city struggled to come to grips Monday with the massacre of eight children carried out by a father who was separating from his wife.
The violence reverberated across Shreveport a day after the nation’s deadliest shooting in two years. Schools brought in counselors for the victims’ young classmates and community leaders called for a city-wide reckoning on stopping domestic violence.
The shooter, identified as Shamar Elkins, killed seven of his children and a nephew, police said. His wife and her sister also were shot and wounded.
Shooter ‘Just Snapped,’ Brother-in-Law Says
Elkins had voluntarily checked into a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in January for just over a week for mental health treatment, said his brother-in-law, Troy Brown, who lived in the house with his wife, Keosha Pugh, and was at work during the attack. Elkins appeared “better when he came home,” he said….