Man charged with supplying gun to Louisiana father who allegedly killed 8 children
A 56-year-old man has been arrested and charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Louisiana with supplying the weapon allegedly used by the suspect to kill seven of his children and a nephew in Shreveport, Louisiana, April 19, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Louisiana U.S. Attorney’s Office)
(NEW YORK) — A 56-year-old Louisiana man is facing federal charges for allegedly supplying an assault-style pistol that Shamar Elkins is suspected of using to allegedly kill eight children, including seven of his own, in a shooting in Shreveport over the weekend, officials said.
Charles Ford, of Shreveport, was arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and making false statements about the firearm to federal agents assisting in the investigation of Sunday’s massacre, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana. He faces a total of up to 20 years in prison if convicted of both charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“Words fall short in the face of the acts Shamar Elkins perpetrated in Shreveport on April 19 – they are beyond comprehension or description,” U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Keller said in the statement announcing the charges.
Elkins, 31, died after leading police on a chase following the mass shooting in Shreveport that also left two women hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
Keller said investigators probing how Elkins obtained the weapon were led to Ford through information they obtained from the original purchaser of the weapon.
“Elkins’ death means that our community will never see him face justice,” Keller said. “Our hope, as we continue to investigate and prosecute this case alongside our law enforcement partners, is that holding the person whose gun Elkins used to perpetrate the crime accountable will give some small bit of solace to our Shreveport community.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Ballots arrive at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operation Center on election night on November 5, 2024 in Fairburn, Georgia. Megan Varner/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Federal authorities are expected to unseal the affidavit they filed in support of their search of a Fulton County, Georgia, election office last month, after a federal judge ordered the document be unsealed by the end of the day Tuesday.
FBI agents on Jan. 28 seized 700 boxes containing ballots and other materials associated with the 2020 election from the county’s Elections Hub and Operations Center after obtaining a search warrant. President Donald Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia, that contributed to his election loss.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee, a Trump nominee, on Sunday ordered the government to unseal the affidavit that was filed in support of the search warrant, subject to “the redaction of the names of non-governmental witnesses.”
In his ruling, Boulee noted that the government did not oppose the unsealing of the affidavit, which could provide more information on the search and the investigation that lead to it.
The ruling came after Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts filed a motion seeking the unsealing of the affidavit, as well as the return of the election documents that were seized.
Pitts said in a statement he was “pleased” with the judge’s ruling.
“Fulton County will continue to pursue every legal option to seek the return of election records and to defend our elections from possible takeover,” Pitts said. “Even in the midst of this unprecedented legal action, we will not allow our staff to be deterred or distracted from preparations for the 2026 election, which will be once again free, fair, transparent and legally compliant.”
While the judge on Sunday ordered the release of the affidavit that was the basis for the search warrant, the warrant itself authorized the FBI to search for “All physical ballots from the 2020 General Election” in addition to tabulator tapes from voting machines and 2020 voter rolls, according to a copy of the warrant that was obtained by ABC Atlanta affiliate WSB following the raid.
The warrant said the material “constitutes evidence of the commission of a criminal offense.”
The warrant listed possible violations of two statutes — one which requires election records to be retained for a certain amount of time, and another which outlines criminal penalties for people, including election officials, who intimidate voters or to knowingly procure false votes or false voter registrations.
Jeffrey Epstein is seen in this image released by the Department of Justice in Washington, December 19, 2025. (U.S. Justice Department)
(WASHINGTON) — Attorneys for hundreds of Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors told ABC News that names and identifying information of numerous victims appear unredacted in the latest disclosure of files on the late sex offender by the Department of Justice, including several women whose names have never before been publicly associated with the case.
Three million pages from the DOJ’s files on Epstein were being released to the public Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a press briefing this morning.
Several categories of pages were withheld from the release due to their sensitive nature, Blanche said. These items include personally identifying information of the victims, victims’ medical files, images depicting child pornography, information related to ongoing cases and any images depicting death or abuse.
“We are getting constant calls for victims because their names, despite them never coming forward, being completely unknown to the public, have all just been released for public consumption,” said Brad Edwards, an attorney for some of the victims, in a telephone interview with ABC News. “It’s literally 1000s of mistakes.”
ABC News has independently confirmed numerous instances of victims’ names appearing in documents included in the latest release.
Shortly after the new material appeared on Friday morning, Edwards said he and his law partner, Brittany Henderson, began receiving calls from clients.
“We contacted DOJ immediately, who has asked us to flag each of the documents where victim names appear unredacted and they will pull them down,” Edwards said. “it’s an impossible job. The easy job would be for the DOJ to type in all the victims’ names, hit redact like they promised to do, then release them. “
“They’re trying to fix it, but I said ‘the solution is take the thing down for now. There’s no other remedy to this. It just runs the risk of causing so much more harm unless they take it down first, then fix the problem and put it back up.'”
ABC News had reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The department has reviewed and redacted “several millions of pages” of materials related to the investigations of Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, and expects to publish “substantially all” of the records “in the near term,” according to a letter filed Tuesday by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence prison.
Blanche said Friday’s release, which follows the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, will include 2,000 videos and 180,000 images related to the Epstein case.
Blanche said in total there were 6 million documents, but due to the presence of child sexual abuse material and victim rights obligations, not all documents are being made public in the current release.
Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations,” using cash payments to recruit a “vast network of underage victims,” some of whom were as young as 14 years old.
U.S. Secret Service agents (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(GLYNCO, Ga.) — A Secret Service agent in training who previously worked as an analyst with the presidential protection team was arrested this week on charges of felony eavesdropping at the nation’s premiere federal law enforcement training academy.
Police reports from Glynn County, Georgia, said the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center student, Joel Lara Canvasser, secretly filmed his suitemate’s every move with a spy camera hidden in a phone charger. Canvasser allegedly targeted the roommate with a weekslong campaign of harassing text messages written to suggest the roommate was being watched by a stalking stranger who could see into his suite and even the bathroom.
Canvasser was arrested Wednesday and charged with unlawful eavesdropping or surveillance, according to police records. He posted bond of $8,458. Canvasser did not respond to messages seeking comment from ABC News.
Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn called the charges against Canvasser “deeply troubling.”
“On April 8, disturbing facts involving a Secret Service trainee assigned to a special agent training class at FLETC in Glynco, Georgia, were brought to light,” Quinn said in a statement to ABC News. “An initial investigation by the Secret Service and FLETC led to the individual’s arrest by local authorities. The charges are deeply troubling and raise significant concerns about the individual’s character and fitness to serve. As this matter is now before the courts, we will allow the facts to be presented through the judicial process. We commend the swift actions of Secret Service trainers and FLETC personnel, whose prompt response ensured the matter was quickly brought forward and addressed through appropriate legal channels.”
The agency also confirmed that the incident occurred between Canvasser and his suitemate, also a Secret Service trainee.
Before applying to be a special agent, Canvasser was a civilian employee assigned to the Office of Strategic Information and Intelligence, which monitors and assesses threats to the president and others under Secret Service protection.
Canvasser started with the Secret Service in the fall of 2025, the agency said — but now in addition to the criminal charges he faces, his access to all Secret Service sites and systems has been revoked while his work status and security clearance is suspended.
According to police, Canvasser in March offered his suitemate a phone charger after the roommate’s charger seemed to have disappeared. Canvasser, police said, told the roommate “the cleaning ladies may have taken it.”
Police said the roommate plugged the charger in below the TV, giving the hidden camera a vantage point that had “coverage of the entire room.”
“Roughly a week after [the roommate] plugs in the charger, he begins receiving odd text messages from various numbers. In the beginning he believed they were spam messages, however over time he began to realize whoever was texting him was simultaneously watching him,” the police report said. “At first, he assumed whoever was texting him had compromised his phone,” so he “placed a Band Aid over the camera.”
The roommate sought Canvasser’s help with what he thought was his hacked device, the report said. Canvasser “has a cyber background and is supposedly good with technology which is why [the roommate] had gone to him for help.”
Canvasser told the suitemate he was probably the victim of malware and offered to help reset the phone, according to the report. But afterward, the roommate noticed the refreshed phone had suddenly and automatically connected to Canvasser’s personal WiFi account — something he found “odd,” according to the report.
The roommate’s reprieve from the harassing messages was short-lived, the report said: the texts “made a return” a week later.
“There was a specific instance where [the roommate] was using the bathroom and his phone was in his pocket. When he finished, he checked his phone and saw a message referencing him using the bathroom. It was at this point that [the roommate] realized the individual was not watching him through his phone camera but instead from another device,” according to the report.
Upon examining the borrowed charger, the roommate noticed it had an unusual glint, and “realized it was a camera,” the report said. “When he had pulled it out of the wall, the light hit the device in such a way that made the lens visible.”
Canvasser’s alleged harassing voyeurism did not stop at the surreptitious filming, according to the report: the roommate told police that “during the past month, Mr. Joel has gone into [his] room on multiple occasions while he’s been sleeping at night. For this reason, [the roommate] has been locking his things up in attempts to prevent these events.”
The trainee’s alleged violations of both privacy and the law are another black mark for the agency tasked with protecting top officials, including the president, vice president, their families and foreign dignitaries visiting the U.S.
The Secret Service had faced intense scrutiny since a gunman attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, then a former president running to return to the White House, while he campaigned at a Pennsylvania rally two years ago. That incident, which prompted the ouster of the agency’s director, was called a “historic security failure by the Secret Service” in an independent review by the Department of Homeland Security.
It also comes after a Secret Service agent tasked with protecting former President Barack Obama knowingly breached his duties while trying to woo a love interest and living a double life, according to a memoir from the agent’s ex-girlfriend. That prompted an internal probe once the agency became aware, after which the agent was ultimately fired.
