Shamar Elkins' Fatal Loophole: How a 2019 Probation Deal for School-Zone Gunfire Left the Army Veteran Armed

A 2019 plea deal handed to a Shreveport Army National Guard veteran who fired a weapon near a high school let him keep legal access to a gun seven years before he killed eight children on April 19, public court records show.

A Dismissed Charge and 18 Months' Probation

Shamar Elkins, 31, pleaded guilty in October 2019 to illegal use of weapons after admitting he fired five rounds at a car less than 300 feet from the fence line of Caddo Magnet High School in Shreveport, Louisiana. Children were playing outside the school when the rounds were fired in its direction, police records show.

Elkins told officers he had stepped out to meet a friend when another occupant of the car pulled a gun on him. He fired as the driver pulled away.

A second, more serious charge of carrying a firearm on school property was dismissed. Elkins was placed on 18 months' probation in Caddo District Court and walked away without a permanent firearms ban.

Under Louisiana's gun-possession statute, only certain felonies, such as felony illegal use of weapons, sex crimes, drug crimes, and crimes of violence, trigger the state's 10-year bar on firearm possession. The offence Elkins pleaded to sat below that threshold, leaving him legally free to own a gun once his probation ended in 2021.

Seven Years Later, a Mass Killing

On April 19, Elkins shot his wife at a home on Harrison Street, drove roughly a quarter-mile to the 300 block of West 79th Street, and killed eight children inside a house in the Cedar Grove neighbourhood, Shreveport police said. Seven of the victims were his own children.

The children who died ranged in age from three to 11, Shreveport Police Corporal Chris Bordelon confirmed to CNN. A 13-year-old boy survived after jumping from the roof and sustaining broken bones. Elkins carjacked a vehicle, led officers on a chase into Bossier Parish, and was fatally shot during the confrontation.

It is the deadliest US mass shooting since January 2024, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Warning Signs Posted Online

Ten days before the attack, Elkins shared a Facebook prayer asking God to 'help me guard my mind and my emotions' against depression, anger, anxiety, and panic.

Two weeks earlier, he had posted a photograph of himself surrounded by seven of his children after an Easter church service.

An Army official confirmed to Fox News Digital that Elkins served in the Louisiana Army National Guard from August 2013 to August 2020 as a signal support systems specialist and fire support specialist, left as a private, and was never deployed.

He had also shared a Facebook post in March answering a question asking whether they would change the mothers of their children. 'Hell yeah, I would,' Elkins said in his caption.

A System That Missed Him Twice

Shreveport Councilman Grayson Boucher said at a Sunday press conference that over 30% of the city's murders are domestic in nature, a figure that the single attack nearly doubled in one morning. 'We more than doubled our homicides in the city of Shreveport because of one act of domestic violence,' he said.

Under US federal law, gun ownership is typically only barred following a qualifying felony conviction or a specific domestic-violence misdemeanor. Because Elkins' 2019 conviction for illegal use of weapons resulted in probation rather than a prison-eligible felony sentence, his record fell short of the legal thresholds for a permanent firearms ban.

Gun-control group Giffords, founded by former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, called the shooting an act of domestic gun violence. The White House was monitoring the situation, officials said.