Deadly domestic violence cases stir calls for more prevention resources
for Black communities
[April 21, 2026]
By SAFIYAH RIDDLE and COREY WILLIAMS
Two headline-grabbing, deadly domestic violence cases, one in Louisiana
and the other in Virginia targeting Black mothers, have sparked a
national conversation about domestic violence prevention resources and
mental health care available to Black communities.
Many advocates in the aftermath of the deadly shootings have said the
tragedies pointedly highlight troubling underlying trends where Black
women are more likely to experience domestic violence — and they see the
killings as an opportunity to confront how disparities in access to care
and resources make some women and children more vulnerable to violence
in the home.
On Sunday morning, a man police identified as Shamar Elkins fatally shot
seven of his children and another child in Shreveport, Louisiana. A
relative has said Elkins was in the midst of separating from his wife
who was wounded.
And last Thursday, police found the bodies of former Virginia Lt. Gov.
Justin Fairfax and his estranged wife, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, in their
suburban Washington, D.C., home. Justin Fairfax shot his estranged wife
and then himself, and their two children in the home at the time were
unhurt, police said. Like Elkins, Fairfax was in the process of
separating from his wife and had faced a judge's upcoming deadline to
move from the house.
While it's not clear what prompted the Shreveport killings or the
apparent murder-suicide in Annandale, Virginia, experts say that the
harrowing details of the killings echo familiar patterns that play out
in homes across the country — and underscore the need for solutions that
address the root causes of the disparate violence.
A ‘silent epidemic’
Sunday wasn’t the first time that Elkins’ family had suffered from
gender-based gun violence: Shaneiqua Elkins and the other woman who was
shot, Keosha Pugh, were sisters, and lost their mother to gun violence
when they were under age 10, according to their uncle Lionel Pugh.
“It’s sad. It just breaks you down," Pugh said.
Shreveport Councilman Grayson Boucher said at a news conference Monday
that the Louisiana killings were emblematic of “a true epidemic of
domestic violence" across the small southern city of roughly 180,000
people.
Those trends go well beyond Shreveport as experts have pointed out how
both race and gender make Black women in particular more vulnerable to
domestic violence.
More than four in 10 Black women experience physical violence from an
intimate partner during their lifetimes — a much higher rate than women
who are white, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander — according to a 2014
study by the Centers for Disease Control.
Paméla Tate is the executive director of Black Women Revolt, which runs
programs to prevent abuse and offers survivors' resources. She said a
logical skepticism about police and government child services agencies
based on a history of institutionalized racism makes Black women
reluctant to seek help — and especially vulnerable to domestic violence.
Additionally, Black women are two times more likely to be murdered by
men than their white counterparts, according to a 2025 study published
by the Violence Policy Center, based on federal government data from
2023. Those men are more often than not familiar to their victims,
according to the study, which found that more than nine in 10 Black
female victims knew their killers, with the majority of those killings
being carried out with guns.
Ultimately, Tate said, “domestic violence doesn't see color," and is
primarily driven by the prevalent belief among men — across racial
demographics — that women are subjects or property.
“Domestic violence is about exerting power over someone that you profess
to love and controlling their behavior,” Tate said.
Lack of resources for Black men
There has been intense speculation about the role that mental health
crises might have played in both shootings.
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Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, right, and his wife, Cerina, at the
inauguration of Gov. Ralph Northam at the Capitol in Richmond, Va.,
Saturday, Sept. 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Kevin Morley, File)
A relative of Elkins' wife told The Associated Press that Elkins had
voluntarily checked into a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in
January for about a week and a half for mental health help.
In Virginia, Justin Fairfax was a rising star in the Democratic Party
until two women accused him of sexual assault, casting doubt on his
trustworthiness as a political leader. The former lieutenant governor's
“mental and emotional health” suffered before he killed his wife and
himself, according to court documents, which say he drank heavily and
withdrew from his family after the allegations were made public in 2019.
Adult and child psychiatrist Christine Crawford hasn’t examined the
killings in Shreveport or Annandale, but said financial troubles,
marital issues and problems at work — in addition to underlying mental
health vulnerabilities — can lead someone to “crack."
“It makes some think about the amount of pain, distress and hopelessness
they found themselves in at that time,” said Crawford, who practices at
the Webster Clinic in Boston and is interim chief medical officer at the
National Alliance on Mental Illness.
She noted many Black people find themselves priced out of programs and
care for mental health for such reasons as private care costs and a lack
of insurance.
That level of desperation can make some people feel “completely out of
options on how to deal with the pain he was in at that moment," Crawford
said. T
Some have said that there are social dimensions to these economic
trends, too.
“Mental health disparities in the Black community is not accidental,”
said University of Michigan Social Work Professor Daphne C. Watkins.
“They are the predictable result of structural racism” in schools,
employment and other aspects of society.
Watkins, founder of the YBMen Project which provides young Black men
with a safe place to discuss their mental health, manhood and social
support, said studies show that 10% of Black adults experience moderate
to severe depression, while 18% experience anxiety disorders.
But Black men tend to forego mental health treatment due to cultural
expectations, in addition to costs, said Watkins. Without an outlet,
stressors from family, work and relationships can pile up.
“For a long time, in the Black community, we didn’t talk about anxiety.
Now, you have to talk about it hand in hand along with depression.”
Mental health not an excuse, some say
Others have emphatically said that mental health is not an excuse for
domestic violence.
“To say they’re mentally ill, that doesn’t cut it,” Tate said. “There
are people who are depressed or people who have schizophrenia and don’t
harm the their partners, much less kill them.”
Shaneiqua Elkins and Cerina Fairfax could have been struggling with
mental health challenges too, Tate added, and they both “had the same
access or ability to go and purchase a gun” but chose not to.
“The mental illness is not what we’re talking about here,” she said.
____
Associated Press writer Sophie Bates contributed in Shreveport,
Louisiana.
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