Jayla Elkins, a 3-year-old girl from Shreveport, Louisiana, was one of eight children killed on April 19, 2026, in a domestic violence mass shooting that devastated the Cedar Grove neighborhood. Authorities identified the children as siblings and one cousin, with Jayla among the youngest victims. Police said the children ranged in age from 3 to 11, and the shooting unfolded before many families in the neighborhood had even begun their Sunday morning.
The violence began with what police
described as a domestic disturbance. The suspected gunman, 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, was identified by authorities as the father of seven of the eight children killed. Investigators said the attack involved multiple locations, beginning with the shooting of an adult woman before Elkins went to a home in the 300 block of West 79th Street, where the children were later found dead. Two adult women were shot and wounded, and others were injured while trying to escape the terror inside the home.
Jayla’s death was part of a much larger tragedy that police described as a massacre rooted in domestic violence. Reports said Elkins was in the middle of a separation from his wife, and family members described him as distraught in the days and weeks before the shootings. One account from a relative said Elkins had previously made threats about killing his wife, his children, and himself if the family left him. Authorities said they were still working to understand the full motive, but the public details pointed to a domestic conflict that escalated into the killing of children who had no way to protect themselves.
After the children were shot, Elkins fled. Police said he carjacked a vehicle, leading officers on a pursuit that crossed into Bossier City. Officers confronted him after the chase, and there was an exchange of gunfire. Elkins died at the end of that confrontation. Early reports differed on whether he was killed by police or died by suicide, but later accounts citing preliminary autopsy information said he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Because Elkins died, he was never arrested, charged, or tried for Jayla’s killing or the deaths of the other children.
The weapon used in the shooting became the focus of a separate federal case. Authorities arrested 56-year-old Shreveport resident Charles Ford and charged him by criminal complaint with being a felon in possession of a firearm and making a false statement to federal agents. Federal prosecutors said the charges were connected to the firearm Elkins used in the April 19 mass shooting. Ford allegedly first denied knowledge of the weapon, then admitted he had possessed it and claimed it had been kept under the seat of his truck. Investigators said Ford believed Elkins had taken possession of the firearm.
Ford’s case did not make him the accused killer, but prosecutors said it was part of the effort to determine how Elkins obtained the gun used to kill Jayla and the other children. If convicted, Ford faced potential federal prison time, including up to 15 years on the felon-in-possession charge and up to five years for allegedly making false statements. As of the available reporting, the murder suspect was dead, and the known arrest connected to the case involved the alleged firearm possession and false-statement charges tied to the weapon.
Jayla’s name became one of the names repeated in the aftermath as Shreveport mourned eight young lives lost inside one family circle. What began as a domestic dispute ended with children dead, mothers wounded, relatives injured trying to flee, and a community left trying to understand how a private crisis became one of the deadliest mass shootings in the country in recent years.
