By Suheir Sheikh, Brad Brooks and Rich McKay
SHREVEPORT, Louisiana, April 20 (Reuters) - Shreveport police said on Monday that they were working to determine why a man shot and killed seven of his children and an eighth child the day before, but said the eruption of violence appeared to be part of an ongoing domestic dispute.
Police also said that it was not yet clear if the gunman, whom they identified as Shamar Elkins, was killed by police officers with whom he exchanged gunfire as he tried to flee
in a car on Sunday or if he had taken his own life.
"All evidence and indications are that this erupted as a domestic dispute," Shreveport police chief Wayne Smith said at a news conference on Monday. "The chances are good that this was not the first time."
Elkins also shot two women, one of whom was his wife and the other of whom identified herself in a 911 call to police as Elkins' girlfriend, Smith said.
The girlfriend reported that Elkins had shot at her house a few blocks from where the eight children were killed, and that Elkins had taken her three children, whom police later found. The shooting at the girlfriend's house took place before the killing of eight children at another home, police said.
Both women remain hospitalized, Smith said.
Elkins was convicted in 2019 of illegal use of a firearm, police said, a felony that should have prevented him from owning a gun. The New York Times reported that a driver flashed a handgun at him and he responded by firing his gun five times, striking the driver's car. Reuters could not immediately verify that account.
Smith said that investigators were working to determine how Elkins obtained the firearm used in the killings, which he described as an "assault-style" pistol.
The violence began early Sunday morning, with police saying they got their first call just before 6 a.m. from a woman who was on the roof of the home where Elkins shot and killed the children, who ranged in age from 3 to 11 years old.
Officers were on the scene within a few minutes, but Elkins had already carjacked a vehicle and fled. Within a few minutes, police who were on traffic patrol spotted the car Elkins had stolen, and within 15 minutes police who pursued him were exchanging gunfire with Elkins in Bossier City, about six miles northeast of where the children were killed, according to the police chief.
The Caddo Parish Coroner's Office identified the children killed as: Jayla Elkins, 3; Shayla Elkins, 5; Kayla Pugh, 6; Layla Pugh, 7; Markaydon Pugh, 10; Sariahh Snow, 11; Khedarrion Snow, 6; and Braylon Snow, 5.
Not including Sunday's incident in Shreveport, the Gun Violence Archive lists at least 119 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, resulting in 117 deaths, including 79 children, and 458 people injured.
The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as an incident in which at least four people, not including the shooter, are injured or killed by gunfire. The United States had 407 mass shootings last year, according to archive data.
(Reporting by Suheir Sheikh in Shreveport, Brad Brooks in Colorado and Rich McKay in Atlanta; editing by Donna Bryson and Ethan Smith)
