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Suspected FSU shooter promoted ‘white supremacist’ views, spewed racist vitriol against black people: report
Alleged Florida State University shooter Phoenix Ikner touted vile “white supremacist” views, according to his classmates — including that “Rosa Parks was in the wrong” and that black people were destroying his community.
Ikner, who allegedly killed two people and wounded six others when he opened fire on campus Thursday, horrified other students with his “gross” racial rhetoric.
One classmate from Ikner’s former school, Tallahassee State College, recalled how he was asked to leave a “political roundtable” club over his hate speech.
“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,” Reid Seybold told the Tallahassee Democrat.
Another classmate said Ikner was vocal in their federal politics class, promoting his disturbing views about black people, as well as far-right conspiracy theories, such as that former President Joe Biden was fraudulently elected.
His opinions were so troubling that the classmate, Lucas Luzietti, chillingly remembered thinking that “this man should not have access to firearms.”
“I got into arguments with him in class over how gross the things he said were,” Luzietti told USA Today.
“What are you supposed to do? His mother was a cop, and Florida doesn’t have very strong red flag laws.”
Here is the latest on the Florida State University shooting
- Shooter opens fire on FSU student union, leaving at least 2 dead, multiple injured
- Student who survived both FSU and Parkland shootings describes rushing peers to safety
- Victim killed in FSU shooting identified as dad of two, Aramark employee
- Alleged FSU gunman’s biological mom breaks silence about deadly shooting
Ikner, whose stepmother is a Leon County sheriff’s deputy, made it very clear that he had guns, classmates said. One of the firearms he allegedly used on Thursday is believed to belong to his stepmother.
“It’s so sad and so shocking,” Luzietti said of the shooting. “Then to see that it was him — I’m sadly not surprised.”
Ikner’s motive for the mass shooting is unknown.
The FSU student opened fire on the Tallahassee campus’ student center around noon Thursday, killing two Aramark employees — Robert Morales, 57, and Tiru Chabba, 45 — and injuring five others.
All of the wounded are expected to make a full recovery.
Harrowing footage circulating online appears to show a gunman armed with a pistol marching up and down a lawn and firing on random passersby fleeing for cover – while a wounded person lay slumped on the grass nearby.
Ikner, who was found with his mother’s service weapon and a shotgun, was shot and wounded by responding officers when he “did not comply with commands,” Tallahassee police Chief Lawrence E. Revell said.
He was hospitalized for his injuries.
Ikner was known to the county sheriff’s office as a member of its Youth Advisory Council — a youth outreach group that advises the agency on how to address problems and concerns of local kids and teens.
“This event is tragic in more ways than you people in the audience could ever fathom from a law enforcement perspective,” Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil told reporters.
After the campus was secured, the school announced that all classes and school events were canceled through Friday, and all sporting events were canceled through Sunday.
