CNN
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As multiple rounds of gunfire erupted near Florida State University’s student union minutes before noon on Thursday, students ran away from the campus trying to get to safety as the sound of emergency sirens grew louder.
Just two minutes after 911 calls reported the shooting, the suspect was shot by university police and taken into custody, authorities said. Despite the speedy response, the shooting left two dead and injured five others, sending shock waves through the university community.
“The call went out, someone called it in, and immediately they responded to the scene and immediately neutralized the suspect and prevented this from being a bigger tragedy,” FSU President Richard McCullough said at a news conference Thursday.
As new details emerge about the suspected shooter, Tallahassee police are searching for motive as they investigate.
The suspect, 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, is the son of a Leon County sheriff’s deputy and an FSU student, according to police. There do not appear to be any connections between Ikner and any of the victims, Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell said Thursday.
“We will continue to vet that out. We’ll continue to follow the leads that come in, but at this current time, there does not appear to be any connection between the shooter and … even one of the victims,” Revell said.
Ikner sustained serious injuries and will remain hospitalized “for a significant amount of time” before being transported to a local detention facility, Revell told CNN on Friday afternoon. At that point, he will face charges “up to and including first degree murder,” Revell said in a video message Friday.
Two men – a university dining coordinator and an employee of a campus vendor – were killed. Officials have not yet identified the five victims who were wounded in the shooting.
Five patients who were hospitalized in relation to the shooting remain at the hospital in good condition and expected to fully recover, and one patient was able to go home Friday, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare said. Five people were injured in the shooting and another person was injured while trying to run away, police said. The hospital declined to say whether Ikner was one of their patients.
“They’re all hurting and in pain and scared, but are doing remarkably well and are expected to fully recover,” McCullough, who visited the victims at the hospital, told CNN Friday.
This is Florida’s sixth mass shooting this year and the 81st across the country, according to the Gun Violence Archive. It comes seven years after a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, left 17 dead.
“As a father of several children, this is the thing we fear most. This is that random act of violence that seems to have no meaning or rhyme, reason to it,” Revell said. “To know that your child was on that campus, to know that your child may or may not have been involved and not know that, I can only imagine the terror and the fear.”
Here’s what we know about the timeline, suspect and victims of Thursday’s shooting.
Around 11 a.m. Thursday, Ikner arrived at an FSU parking garage and stayed in the area for about an hour, intermittently going back to his vehicle, police said in a release Friday.
Then, Ikner left the parking garage at 11:51 a.m. About five minutes later, the first shot was fired.
Ikner, using the deputy’s former service weapon, allegedly walked into multiple buildings and green spaces, firing seemingly at random. By 11:58 a.m., as students barricaded doors and texted their loved ones, multiple 911 calls reported an active shooter on campus.
The suspected shooter “did not comply with commands,” Revell said, and at noon, the suspect was shot and taken into custody, when he invoked his right not to speak, Revell said Thursday.
The suspect may have been prepared to shoot more people had he not been confronted by law enforcement not long after the shooting began, a law enforcement official familiar with the ongoing investigation said. Along with the service weapon found on the suspect, police recovered an AR-15 rifle in the car he drove to campus and a shotgun in the student union.
“What we saw on April 17 was an extraordinary example of teamwork and professionalism in the face of a horrific event,” Revell said in a statement Friday.
With the investigation in its early stages and the motive still unknown, authorities are interviewing witnesses and victims, according to the release.
Suspect is an FSU student and deputy’s son
Ikner, a junior political science major at Florida State, has been “steeped in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family” and was involved with training programs, according to authorities.
“It’s not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons,” Leon County Sheriff Walter McNeil said at a news conference Thursday.
Ikner had transferred to FSU this spring semester from Tallahassee State College, where he had received an associate of arts degree. Ikner had ties with local law enforcement as a member of the youth advisory council at the sheriff’s office and as the son of a longtime deputy who serves as a local school resource officer, McNeil said.
Five current and former students at Tallahassee State College told CNN Ikner made peers uncomfortable in class and during political discussions by expressing what they viewed as extreme views. Ikner described civil rights icon Rosa Parks as being “in the wrong,” defended the use of Nazi symbols, and disparaged pro-Palestinian and Black Lives Matter protesters, the students said.
Court documents reviewed by CNN also shed light on the tumultuous childhood of the suspect, showing how his mother and father battled in court over custody through nearly his entire life. The court records, which span nearly 17 years from the time Ikner was two years old until he was 19, detail acrimonious allegations between his parents, with one court filing by Ikner’s biological mother characterizing the child, then 10 years old, as being “in the middle of a war.”
It’s unclear whether the suspect’s biological mother has had contact with him over the last decade, and she did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment. But just after the shooting, she posted on Facebook complaining that her son’s dad hadn’t responded when she wrote “to ask if everything is alright with my son, who studies at FSU.”
“I was alienated from him,” his biological mother, Anne-Mari Eriksen, told CNN affiliate WPLG at her home in Tallahassee on Friday, saying she hadn’t seen her son in several years.
“I have been concerned for him in the past, but I would never have thought that,” Eriksen told WPLG.
Dedicated university employee Robert Morales and loving father of two Tiru Chabba were honored at a university vigil Friday.
“They were deeply loved, and their absences leave a void that cannot be filled,” said Kyle Clark, the university’s senior vice president
Several memorials of balloons, bouquets of flowers, candles and stuffed animals could be seen all around the university’s student union Friday, along with messages of support like “stay strong,” and pleas for gun and mental health reform. Two white crosses with blue hearts were erected amid the memorial, carrying Morales’ and Chabba’s names and messages of love for them.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday directed flags to be flown at half-staff until sunset on Monday, “In memory of the lives lost in this tragedy and to recognize the bravery shown by the first responders.”
Morales, a dining coordinator, was a kind and patient person who would often surprise administrators and staff with homemade Cuban meals and pastries, Clark said.
“Today we lost my younger Brother,” his brother, Ricardo Morales, wrote in a post accompanied by family photos. “He loved his job at FSU and his beautiful Wife and Daughter. I’m glad you were in my Life.”
Art Smith, a celebrity chef who had previously worked alongside Morales, said he’ll remember him as a jolly man who always greeted others with a smile.
Chabba, a resident of Greenville, South Carolina, was an employee with Aramark, a Philadelphia-based food service and facilities management company, according to attorneys representing his family.
Though it was supposed to be a celebratory time for Chabba’s family as Easter approaches, his wife and two kids are now grieving the immense loss.
“Tiru Chabba’s family is going through the unimaginable now,” attorney Bakari Sellers said in a statement. “Instead of hiding Easter eggs and visiting with friends and family, they’re living a nightmare where this loving father and devoted husband was stolen from them in an act of senseless and preventable violence.”
Classes are set to resume Monday, but FSU student Reid Seybold said it will be a challenging return.
“I don’t know how I’m going to go to class on Monday,” Seybold told CNN Saturday. “I don’t feel safe right now being on campus.”
