A Florida State University student accused of opening fire on campus – killing two and wounding six others – is the stepson of a police officer, authorities say.
Officials say the alleged gunman, 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, was carrying a handgun that used to be the service weapon of sheriff’s deputy Jessica Ikner.
The suspect began shooting at around lunchtime on Thursday near the student union building in Tallahassee. The motive remains unclear.
The deceased were not students, campus police said, but their identities have not been released. The suspect, who is in custody, was shot by police and taken to hospital.
A shotgun was also found at the scene, police said.
The suspect was a “longstanding member” of the sheriff office’s youth advisory council and was engaged in a number of training programmes, Sheriff Walt McNeil said.
“So it is not a surprise that he had access to weapons,” he said.
During a press conference Thursday, Phoenix Ikner was identified as the son of Jessica Ikner, however Florida court documents indicate that the suspect has a different biological mother and was largely raised by his father and stepmother.
The suspect is the stepson of a veteran Leon County police officer who is a model employee, said Sheriff McNeil. Jessica Ikner, a school resource officer, kept the gun after the force upgraded its weapons, he said.
Police responded to an active shooter call at around midday local time, the university said. An alert was issued warning students and those on campus to “seek shelter and await further instructions”.
“One of my classmates got an alert on her phone and announced it to the rest of the class,” student Ava Arenado told CBS News Miami.
Another student, Blake Leonard, told CBS he initially heard roughly 12 shots fired.
“In my head, I thought it was construction at first, until I looked behind me and saw people running from the union towards my direction, and then I heard another 12 or 15 shots go off, so I started running away from there too,” he said.
The FSU student newspaper quoted the suspect commenting on a rally on campus, which spoke out against President Donald Trump’s policies and Israel’s war in Gaza, among other things.
FSUNews.com said Mr Ikner, who was registered to vote as a Republican, commented about anti-Trump protesters: “These people are usually pretty entertaining, usually not for good reasons.”
The quote was removed from the story on Thursday with an editor’s note saying the outlet did not wish to amplify the suspect’s voice.
President Donald Trump, who said he was briefed on the incident before meeting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the White House, was asked whether he wanted to change gun regulations in light of the shooting.
He said he was a “big advocate” of the Second Amendment in the US Constitution, which protects gun rights.
“I have been since the beginning,” he said. “I have protected it. These things are terrible. We will have more to say about it later.”
He called the shooting “a shame, a horrible thing”.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said: “Our prayers are with our FSU family and state law enforcement is actively responding.”
This is not the first shooting at FSU. In 2015, a graduate of the school shot and injured three people at the library before he was fatally shot by police.
The father of a girl who was killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland High School in Florida said some of her classmates who were lucky enough to survive that attack were on the campus at FSU during Thursday’s assault.
Fred Guttenberg, a gun control advocate, wrote on X: “Incredibly, some of them were just a part of their 2nd school shooting and some were in the student union today.”
Recent Comments