Eight Children Gunned Down By Their Own Father In Shreveport
Emotional Spotlighting
How They Deceive You
Propaganda
Frames a domestic tragedy as a gun control crisis by pivoting from an emotional police quote to unsubstantiated blame on gun access, while using snarl words to demonize owners and omitting personal motives.
Main Device
Emotional Spotlighting
Amplifies police chief's grief-stricken quote then immediately asserts 'Easy access to guns, that's how' as the cause, laundering opinion as fact.
Archetype
Hyper-partisan progressive gun control crusader
Crooks and Liars blogger employs snarl words against the Second Amendment and broadens personal crimes into indictments of gun culture to advance left-wing advocacy.
Spotlights raw police emotion to stealthily insert anti-gun causation claim, demonizing owners with hyperbole while burying divorce trigger.
Writer's Worldview
“Hyper-partisan progressive gun control crusader”
5 findings · 2 omissions · 5 sources compared
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Narrative Analysis
Verdict: Crooks and Liars accurately conveys the core facts of a devastating domestic mass shooting in Shreveport—eight children killed by their father, Shamar Elkins, who also injured two women before dying in a police confrontation—but undermines its credibility by blending reporting with unattributed opinion and inflammatory rhetoric to push a gun control angle.
Core Strengths
The piece gets the essentials right, drawing from police statements:
- Victim details: Correctly lists names and ages of the eight children (e.g., Jayla Elkins, 3; seven Elkins's children, one cousin), matching reports from outlets like KSLA and USA Today.
- Incident timeline: Notes shootings at two homes, injuries to Elkins's wife and girlfriend, his flight in a carjacked vehicle, and police killing him—verified across AP, BBC, and local coverage.
- Police quote: Faithfully reproduces Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith's emotional response:
“I just don’t know what to say. My heart is just taken aback... I just cannot begin to imagine how such an event can occur.”
This foundation makes it a usable starting point for the tragedy's outline.
Key Techniques and Issues
- Unattributed causation claim: Immediately after the chief's quote, the article inserts:
"Easy access to guns, that's how."
Why it stands out: No sourcing or evidence links gun access to this case; police described it as a "domestic violence incident" without mentioning firearms policy (per WWLTV, KSLA). This presents the author's view as factual explanation.
- Hyperbolic and loaded language: Phrases like "weapon of mass destruction" for the gun, "completely lawless interpretation of the Second Amendment", and "Anyone who upsets a gun owner MUST BE PUNISHED" generalize from one case to all gun owners.
Effect: Escalates emotional tone, shifting from specific tragedy to broad indictment—contrasting neutral terms like "firearm" in KSLA or USA Today.
- Unverified societal claim: Asserts "we don't normally give this particular kind of mass shooting more than a passing thought (as soon as we hear the word 'domestic', we tend to shrug and turn away)".
Issue: No data supports under-coverage of domestic mass shootings; searches yield definitions but no coverage disparity stats.
Verifiable Omissions and Impact
Two concrete facts from court and military records, reported by USA Today (April 19, 2026), alter the "easy access" framing:
- Elkins pled guilty to a 2019 weapons charge in Shreveport and served probation—federal law bars felons from guns, questioning legal possession.
- He served in Louisiana Army National Guard (2013-2020) as a signal/fire support specialist, discharged as private, no deployments; later worked for UPS.
Why material: These undermine the narrative of unrestricted access for an everyday gun owner, providing suspect background absent here.
Author and Outlet Context
Susie Madrak, managing/contributing editor at Crooks and Liars (Ad Fontes: reliability 21.53/64, bias -21.10/42, rated "Unreliable, Problematic"), has a history as a progressive blogger at Shareblue (now Blue Nation Review) and HuffPost. Her work often mixes opinion with news; this piece pivots explicitly from facts to advocacy ("Can we talk about guns and domestic violence?").
Coverage Differences
Other outlets stick closer to facts, varying emphases:
- Divorce/personal crisis focus: Washington Post headlines "Man facing divorce kills 8 children", quoting family on emotional triggers.
- Procedural details: KSLA covers police chase, ninth child's escape, community impact.
- Minimalist: WCVB focuses solely on victim identities and father relation.
- Sensational/military angle: YouTube videos highlight "army veteran dad" status.
No major outlet inserts gun policy causation like this piece.
Bottom line: Strong on tragedy basics and victim info, but the opinion bleed—via unsourced claims, rhetoric, and omissions—turns reporting into advocacy. Readers get facts plus a clear partisan lens; cross-check with locals like KSLA for balance.
Further Reading
Neutral Rewrite
Here's how this article reads with loaded language removed and missing context included.
Shreveport Man Kills Eight Children in Domestic Shooting, Later Shot by Police
By [Neutral Rewrite Editor]
A man in Shreveport, Louisiana, killed eight children in a shooting that authorities described as a domestic violence incident on Sunday morning. The suspect fled in a carjacked vehicle and was later killed by police, according to officials.
The incident occurred at two homes. The suspect's wife and a woman identified as his girlfriend were shot and seriously injured, police said.
The victims were identified by their mothers 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, according to the police office.
Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith told reporters: “I just don’t know what to say. My heart is just taken aback. I just cannot begin to imagine how such an event can occur.”
Police identified the shooter and sole suspect as Shamar Elkins. Seven of the eight children killed were his, according to police spokesperson Christopher Bordelon. The eighth was a cousin, per the coroner's office.
Elkins had pleaded guilty to a weapons charge in Shreveport in 2019 and served probation, court records show. Federal law prohibits felons from possessing firearms, though it was unclear if he was legally in possession of the weapon used in the shooting.
Elkins served in the Louisiana Army National Guard from 2013 to 2020 as a signal and fire support specialist. He was discharged as a private with no deployments and later worked for UPS, according to military and employment records.
Some news reports, including The Washington Post, described the shooting as linked to a possible divorce or personal crisis. Police have not detailed a specific motive beyond the domestic violence classification.
The incident drew expressions of grief from local officials. Authorities continue to investigate the circumstances leading to the shootings.
Investigation Log · 46 steps
Starting investigation...
Investigating Crooks and Liars
Investigating Susie Madrak
Searching for ""Shreveport" "eight children" shooting OR killed "Shamar Elkins""
Verify if the shooting incident happened as described: details on victims, suspect, location, outcome.
Searching for "Shreveport police chief Wayne Smith quote "I just don’t know what to say. My heart is just taken aback""
Verify the police chief's quote and context.
Source: Crooks and Liars
Ad Fontes Media rates Crooks and Liars as 'Unreliable, Problematic' with a reliability score of 21.53. It has a hyper-partisan left bias score of -21.10, with content consistently targeting conservative figures like Trump in headlines. No independent fact-checking track record or detailed corrections policy is evident beyond a generic site page.
Source: Susie Madrak
Susie Madrak is a longtime progressive blogger and editor primarily associated with left-leaning outlets, including managing editor and contributing editor at Crooks and Liars, senior political writer at Shareblue (now Blue Nation Review), and contributor to HuffPost. Her HuffPost bio describes her as a 'former award-winning journalist' but provides no specific awards or mainstream outlets, and her current personal blog focuses on personal health updates rather than journalism. No evidence of fact-checking records, retractions, or independent verification of claims appears in the results.
Searching for ""Shamar Elkins" Shreveport shooting OR killed"
Verify suspect identity, fate (killed by police?), relation to victims.
Searching for ""Jayla Elkins" OR "Shayla Elkins" OR "Kayla Pugh" Shreveport shooting"
Verify victim names and ages.
Searching for "Shreveport shooting "Christopher Bordelon" OR "seven of the eight children" OR "cousin""
Verify police spokesperson claims on relations.
Searching for "Shreveport shooting "wife" OR "girlfriend" injured "carjacked" OR "fled" police killed"
Verify injuries to wife/girlfriend and suspect's death by police.
Searching for ""Shreveport" mass shooting children gun OR firearm access OR domestic violence"
Check if other coverage mentions gun access or domestic violence context.
Searching for ""Shamar Elkins" "weapons charge" OR conviction OR firearm possession OR prohibited OR legal gun"
Verify if Elkins legally possessed the firearm given prior conviction; check details on 2019 weapons charge and probation status.
Searching for "Shreveport shooting "easy access to guns" OR gun control OR second amendment site:foxnews.com OR site:breitbart.com OR site:nationalreview.com OR site:dailywire.com"
Check right-leaning coverage for gun control angles or omissions.
Comparing coverage of "Shreveport Louisiana Shamar Elkins mass shooting children"
Searching for ""domestic violence" mass shootings ignored OR shrugged off statistics OR coverage"
Verify claim that domestic mass shootings are shrugged off or given less attention.
Coverage comparison completed
Source Credibility
Crooks and Liars, authored by Susie Madrak, frames a tragic domestic shooting as a gun control indictment, consistent with the outlet's hyper-partisan left bias (Ad Fontes: reliability 21.53/64, bias -21.10/42) and author's progressive blogging history at left-leaning sites like Shareblue and HuffPost.
Readers may mistake partisan advocacy for neutral reporting on a sensitive tragedy, skewing perception toward anti-gun narratives without balanced context.
unverified_claim
Claims "we don't normally give this particular kind of mass shooting more than a passing thought (as soon as we hear the word 'domestic', we tend to shrug and turn away)", implying domestic violence mass shootings receive less attention.
Creates false narrative that society/media ignore domestic gun violence to justify heightened focus, without evidence; searches yielded no supporting stats or coverage disparities.
Framing
Follows Police Chief Wayne Smith's emotional quote (“I just don’t know what to say. My heart is just taken aback”) with unattributed assertion "Easy access to guns, that's how.", presenting opinion as explanatory fact.
Misattributes causation to "easy access" without evidence, hijacking a neutral police statement to advance gun control thesis; neutral framing would attribute or qualify as author's view.
Emotional Manipulation
Uses snarl words/phrases like "weapon of mass destruction", "completely lawless interpretation of the Second Amendment", and hyperbolic generalization "Anyone who upsets a gun owner MUST BE PUNISHED" to demonize gun ownership broadly.
Shifts focus from specific domestic tragedy to vilifying all gun owners/2A, inflaming emotions rather than informing; neutral language would describe the firearm used without loaded terms.
Missing Context
Suspect Shamar Elkins pled guilty to a 2019 weapons charge in Shreveport and served probation.
Undermines article's "easy access to guns" claim, as prior conviction raises questions about legal possession (federal law prohibits felons); context shows he wasn't a law-abiding gun owner.
Missing Context
Elkins served in Louisiana Army National Guard (2013-2020) as signal/fire support specialist, discharged as private, no deployments; worked for UPS.
Provides background humanizing suspect or contextualizing as non-"typical" gun owner, omitted amid push to generalize to all gun owners in domestic disputes.
Omission
Omits that other coverage notes possible divorce/personal crisis as trigger (e.g., WaPo: "Man facing divorce kills 8 children"), while article vaguely generalizes to "unstable separation or divorce" without specifics.
Selective framing emphasizes guns over interpersonal/domestic motive emphasized elsewhere, narrowing causality to 2A/access.
Writing analysis narrative
Writing verdict summary
Writing neutral rewrite
Investigation complete. Preparing report...
Neutral rewrite ready
Analysis narrative ready
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