Deadly domestic violence cases stir calls for more prevention resources for Black communities

Two headline-grabbing cases of deadly domestic violence, 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.

In the wake of the deadly shootings, many advocates said the tragedies clearly highlight troubling underlying trends that black women are more likely to be victims of 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 domestic violence.

On Sunday morning, a man identified by police as Shamar Elkins shot and killed seven of his children and another child in Shreveport, Louisiana. A relative said Elkins was about to separate from his wife who was injured.

And last Thursday, police found the bodies of former Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax and his estranged wife, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, in their home in suburban Washington, DC. Justin Fairfax shot his ex-wife, then himself, and their two children who were in the house at the time were not injured, police said. Like Elkins, Fairfax was on the verge of separating from his wife and faced a judge-set deadline to leave the house.

While it’s unclear what motivated the Shreveport killings or the apparent murder-suicide in Annandale, Virginia, experts say the harrowing details of the killings echo familiar patterns playing out in homes across the country — and underscore the need for solutions that address the root causes of this disparate violence.

Sunday wasn’t the first time Elkins’ family had suffered gender-based gun violence: Shaneiqua Elkins and the other woman shot, Keosha Pugh, were sisters and lost their mother to gun violence when they were younger than 10, according to their uncle Lionel Pugh.

“It’s sad. It breaks you,” Pugh said.

Shreveport City Councilman Grayson Boucher said at a news conference Monday that the Louisiana killings were emblematic of a “real epidemic of domestic violence” in this small southern city of about 180,000 people.

These trends extend far beyond Shreveport, as experts have highlighted how 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 in their lifetime — a much higher rate than white, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander women — according to a 2014 study by the Centers for Disease Control.

Paméla Tate is the executive director of Black Women Revolt, which runs abuse prevention programs and provides resources for survivors. She said a logical skepticism of police and government child-serving agencies, based on a history of institutionalized racism, makes black women reluctant to seek help — and particularly vulnerable to domestic violence.

Additionally, Black women are twice as likely to be murdered by men as their white counterparts, according to a 2025 study released by the Violence Policy Center, based on 2023 federal government data. These men are most often 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 these murders committed with guns.

Ultimately, Tate said, “domestic violence has no color” and is primarily driven by the widespread belief among men — regardless of racial demographics — that women are subjects or property.

“Domestic violence is exercising power over someone you claim to love and controlling their behavior,” Tate said.

There has been intense speculation about the role mental health crises may have played in both shootings.

A relative of Elkins’ wife told The Associated Press that Elkins voluntarily went to a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in January for about a week and a half to get 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 reliability 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 became public in 2019.

Adult and child psychiatrist Christine Crawford has not examined the Shreveport or Annandale killings, but said financial problems, marital problems and problems at work — in addition to underlying mental health vulnerabilities — can lead someone to “snap.”

“It makes some people think about the depth of pain and distress and despair that they were in at that time,” said Crawford, who practices at the Webster Clinic in Boston and is acting chief medical officer at the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

She noted that many Black people find themselves excluded from mental health programs and care for reasons including the costs of private care and lack of insurance.

This level of despair can lead some people to feel “completely out of options to deal with the pain they were feeling at the time,” Crawford said. T

Some have said that these economic trends also have social dimensions.

“Mental health disparities in the black community are not accidental,” said Daphne C. Watkins, a professor of social work at the University of Michigan. “They are the predictable result of structural racism” in schools, employment and other aspects of society.

Watkins, founder of the YBMen Project which provides a safe place for young black men to discuss their mental health, manhood and social support, said studies show that 10% of black adults suffer from moderate to severe depression, while 18% suffer from anxiety disorders.

But black men tend to forgo mental health treatment because of cultural expectations, in addition to costs, Watkins said. Without a way out, stressors related to family, work, and relationships can pile up.

“For a long time, in the black community, we didn’t talk about anxiety. Today, we have to talk about it with depression.”

Others insisted that mental health is no excuse for domestic violence.

“Saying they’re mentally ill, that’s not enough,” Tate said. “There are people who are depressed or have schizophrenia and who don’t harm their partners, let alone kill them.”

Shaneiqua Elkins and Cerina Fairfax could have also been struggling with mental health issues, Tate added, and they both “had the same access or ability to go and purchase a gun” but chose not to do so.

“Mental illness is not what we’re talking about here,” she said.

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Associated Press writer Sophie Bates contributed from Shreveport, Louisiana.