Phoenix Ikner ID’d as FSU shooting suspect, son of sheriff’s deputy with access to her firearm
The alleged gunman who killed two people when he opened fire on Florida State University’s campus Thursday was identified as the son of a Leon County sheriff’s deputy who allegedly promoted “white supremacist” views, according to officials and a report.
Phoenix Ikner, 20, was identified as the suspected killer and allegedly used one of his mother’s former service pistols in the mass shooting, Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil confirmed during a press conference hours after the shooting Thursday.
Ikner, an active FSU student, was also found in possession of a shotgun, though it is unclear whether he used it in the alleged attack. Some witnesses described the shooter unloading with a long gun before switching to a pistol.
The?accused killer?was also a member of the sheriff’s office’s Youth Advisory Council.
“This event is tragic in more ways than you people in the audience could ever fathom from a law enforcement perspective,” McNeil said.
The president of a political discourse club at Tallahassee State College, where Ikner attended before transferring to FSU, claimed the alleged shooter’s extremist views made others uncomfortable.
Ikner talked about President Trump’s agenda while also pushing white supremacist views at the nonpartisan club meant to focus on debate and discourse, Riley Pusins told NBC News.
The?alleged gunman attended most club meetings and afterward offered more “inappropriate” remarks, Pusins added.
The former president of the same club, Reid Seybold, said Ikner was eventually booted from the “political roundtable” organization.
“Basically our only rule was no Nazis — colloquially speaking — and he espoused so much white supremacist rhetoric, and far-right rhetoric, as well, to the point where we had to exercise that rule,” Seybold, now a senior at FSU after transferring in, told NBC News.
The gunfire also left another five wounded before the suspect was shot and taken into custody alive.
