Two people were killed, six others were wounded, and the 20-year-old son of a sheriff’s deputy is in custody as the accused gunman who opened fire in an on-campus shooting at Florida State University.
Ikner had been traumatized by psychological and emotional abuse, as well as parental alienation, when he was younger, during a complex custody battle between his parents that had ended in charges against his mother and a legal change from his birth name, which had been Christian Gunnar Eriksen.
Police identified the suspect as Phoenix Ikner, 20, the stepson of a sheriff’s deputy and a possible FSU student.
Ikner adopted his father’s surname and selected a first name brimming with symbolism.
The young man who struggled with a fractured family life and later clashed with classmates over his extreme political views, including white supremacist and far-right rhetoric.
“He espoused the election denialism belief that Joe Biden was not the legitimate president, he said that Rosa Parks was in the wrong, he also talked about how Black people are ruining his neighborhood and Stonewell was bad for society,” said Lucas Luzietti, who shared a class with the accused gunman at Tallahassee State College before he transferred to FSU. “He would also talk about how multiculturalism is dangerous.”
Authorities said Thursday they believe Ikner used a handgun that belonged to his stepmother, Jessica Ikner, a Leon County sheriff’s deputy and a school resource officer at a Tallahassee middle school.
It marked the sixth mass shooting in Florida and the 81st mass shooting in the United States in 2025, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
On March 15, 2025, four victims outside an event space following a party in Verona were injured in the only New Jersey mass shooting so far this year.
The university issued an active shooter alert near the university’s student union at midday Thursday. The campus lockdown was lifted shortly after 3 p.m. when Florida State’s alert system announced that law enforcement had “neutralized the threat.”