A domestic violence attack in Shreveport, La., turned into one of the deadliest U.S. mass shootings in years on Sunday, leaving eight children dead and two women seriously injured, according to authorities.

Police said the children ranged in age from 1 to about 14 years old. Officials described the scene as “extensive” and unlike anything most officers had ever seen. The shooting unfolded across two homes in a neighborhood south of downtown Shreveport, police said.

Shreveport police said the gunman first shot a woman at one home, then drove to a second location and carried out the deadliest part of the attack. He left two women seriously injured and hospitalized. Investigators described the case as domestic violence-related but have not publicly said what triggered it.

After the shootings, the suspect fled the scene, carjacked a vehicle at gunpoint, and led police on a pursuit into neighboring Bossier Parish, authorities said. He later died after an encounter with law enforcement. No officers were injured.

The names of the children were not immediately released as identification was still pending, according to the Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office. State Rep. Tammy Phelps said some of the children tried to escape through a back door. A nearby resident also told reporters she later saw the covered body of a child on a roof.

Officials and residents alike appeared shaken as the scale of the loss became clear. Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith said he could not begin to imagine how such an event could occur, while Mayor Tom Arceneaux called it perhaps the worst tragedy the city had ever experienced.

Pastor Marty T. Johnson Sr., who owns one of the homes where the shooting took place, said he planned to hold a prayer vigil and help however he could. “With so many children,” he said, “anything I can do … to help them bury the children, I’m going to do so.”

This attack was reported to be the deadliest mass shooting in the United States in more than two years. But in Shreveport, the national statistic is not the point. Eight children are dead, two women are fighting to survive, and a community now has to live with the aftermath of a domestic violence massacre that became every family’s nightmare.

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