Officials have identified the son of a sheriff’s deputy as a suspect in the Florida State University shooting that killed two people and wounded several others Thursday.
Phoenix Ikner, 20, accessed one of his mother's weapons — a handgun — that officials said was used in the shooting and matched one of the firearms at the scene, Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil said at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
Officials said that Ikner’s mother had purchased her former service weapons and that it was her personal property at the time of the shooting.
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Police said the gunman also had a shotgun but have not yet confirmed whether it was used.
A motive has not been identified.
Ikner is believed to be a student at FSU.
It was not a surprise that Ikner had access to weapon, McNeil said, as he was a member of the sheriff’s office’s citizen advisory or Youth Advisory Council. The Leon County Sheriff’s Office described the council as a way to "provide an open line of communication between the youth of Leon County and local law enforcement" in a news release that announced its the 2021-22 class.
The gunman opened fire near the student union around 11:50 a.m., FSU Police Chief Jason Trumbower said. He shot multiple people before FSU police were able to engage, neutralize and apprehend him.
The shooter is hospitalized with unspecified injuries, police said. Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell said in a statement Thursday night that Ikner had serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
“This event is tragic in more ways than you people in the audience could ever fathom from a law enforcement perspective,” McNeil said. “But I will tell you this, we will make sure that we do everything we can to prosecute and make sure that we send a message to folks that this will never be tolerated here in Leon County and, I dare say, across this state and across this nation.”
A student who witnessed the gunman approach campus and begin opening fire said the shooter pulled up to campus in an orange Hummer and got out holding a rifle and shooting in her direction.
“I think he was shooting and he missed. So he goes back into his car and grabs a pistol, then he turns and shoots the lady in front of him. That’s when I just started running," McKenzie Heeter, a junior at FSU, told NBC News.
Heeter described the shooter as a “normal college dude.”
Classmate said suspect had white supremacist views
Reid Seybold, a senior at FSU who was around the corner from the shooting when it unfolded, said he knew Ikner from a political discussion group at Tallahassee State College, where he spent the first two years of his education before he transferred to FSU.
Seybold, the group's president, said Ikner was asked not to return to the group because of views that Seybold said aligned with white supremacy.
“He espoused so much white supremacist rhetoric and far-right rhetoric, as well,” Seybold said.
Since then, Seybold said, he has seen Ikner only a couple of times in passing.
The current president of the same club, Riley Pusins, said that at meetings, the suspect advocated for President Donald Trump’s agenda and often promoted white supremacist values, even though the club was nonpartisan and was about debate and political discourse.
Pusins said many people in the club had labeled the suspect, who attended regularly as recently as last semester, a fascist.
After the meetings, Pusins said, the suspect often made more “inappropriate” comments. He would “go up to the line” in the meeting and then cross the line in comments made after the fact, Pusins said.
Seybold said he was working on a group project when he heard about the shooting. He said he immediately locked down in the classroom where he was working as he heard gunfire nearby.
“I was texting everybody I loved, letting know that I loved them. I was getting ready to die, which was harrowing,” Seybold said.
“I don’t know why he would have done something like this,” Seybold said. “I don’t know where it would have come from, but I’d sure like to find out.”
