15 hours ago
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Amid the abandoned chemistry notes and different debris near down aft a deadly shooting astatine Florida State University are lingering questions astir however the stepson of a beloved sheriff’s lawman tasked with schoolhouse information astatine a mediate schoolhouse became the accused gunman.
Political subject pupil Phoenix Ikner was a long-standing subordinate of a sheriff’s bureau younker advisory assembly and was steeped successful the family-like civilization of the agency. When officers rushed to the university’s pupil national connected reports of gunfire, authorities accidental it was the 20-year-old who utilized his stepmother’s erstwhile work limb to unfastened fire, killing 2 men and wounding six others.
As people fled successful terror, Ikner was changeable and taken into custody. He invoked his close not to talk to investigators, and his motive remains chartless arsenic helium lies successful a infirmary bed.
The prosecutor's bureau is weighing imaginable charges arsenic stories look astir a darker side. One classmate recalled him being kicked retired of a pupil nine implicit comments that different members recovered troubling.
“This is horrific,” Jimmy Williams, the main of information for Leon County Schools, said of the shooting. “This is simply a horrible, horrible event.”
Williams, who has known Ikner’s stepmother, Jessica Ikner, for a decade, said the allegations underscore that “none of america are immune to tragedy.”
Suspect is the stepson of a beloved deputy
His stepmother, whose ain alma mater is Florida State, was reassigned from her presumption arsenic a schoolhouse assets serviceman Friday and granted the idiosyncratic permission she requested, a sheriff’s bureau spokesperson told The Associated Press.
When the alert went retired of an progressive shooter astatine Florida State University, Jessica Ikner was connected work astir 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) distant astatine Raa Middle School. A sheriff’s bureau spokesperson said Jessica Ikner worked to unafraid the field to forestall anyone from entering arsenic Raa went into “lockout mode," on with each of the county’s nationalist schools. She was practiced astatine this work.
Last year, she was named an “employee of the month” by the sheriff’s office, wherever she has worked for 18 years.
Police said they believed Phoenix Ikner changeable the victims utilizing his stepmother’s erstwhile work handgun, which she had kept for idiosyncratic usage aft the unit upgraded its weapons.
Leon County Sheriff Walter McNeil described Phoenix Ikner connected Thursday arsenic having been “steeped successful the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family” and engaged successful a fig of sheriff’s bureau grooming programs, adding that it wasn’t a astonishment that helium would person entree to guns.
There was nary grounds of him having a transgression record. And successful Florida, grooming and a inheritance cheque are not required to transportation concealed guns successful public.
Custody disputes and sanction alteration successful his puerility
When Ikner was a child, his parents were progressive successful respective custody disputes with his biologic mother, tribunal records show.
In 2015, erstwhile helium was 10, his biologic mother, Anne-Mari Eriksen, said she was taking him to South Florida for outpouring interruption successful 2015 but alternatively traveled to Norway. After returning to the U.S., she pleaded nary contention to removing a insignificant from the authorities against a tribunal bid and was sentenced to 200 days successful jail. She aboriginal moved to vacate her plea, but that was denied.
In the autumn of that aforesaid year, Eriksen filed a civilian libel-slander ailment against Jessica Ikner, on with respective different household members. The complaint, which was aboriginal dismissed, accused them of harassing Eriksen and abusing Ikner’s presumption astatine the sheriff’s office.
In 2020, astatine property 15, the fishy received tribunal support to alteration his sanction from Christian Eriksen to Phoenix Ikner, tribunal documents show. His aged sanction was a changeless reminder of a “tragedy” helium suffered, successful the words of administrative magistrate James Banks, who approved the request, NBC News reported.
Banks observed that Ikner was a “mentally, emotionally and physically mature young big who is precise articulate” and “very polite” said helium chose the caller sanction arsenic a practice of “rising from the ashes anew.”
Classmate says determination were concerns astir the accused shooter
Reid Seybold and his classmates were moving connected a radical task successful a gathering located a short, three-minute locomotion from the pupil national erstwhile idiosyncratic ran successful and warned them astir the gunfire. They huddled together, the 22-year-old said, frantically firing disconnected what they thought mightiness beryllium their last substance messages to loved ones.
When Seybold recovered retired who the fishy successful the shooting was — that it was idiosyncratic helium knows — helium was flooded with anger. Seybold was the president of a nine that Phoenix Ikner joined erstwhile they were some studying astatine the section assemblage college, present called Tallahassee State College.
Seybold said Ikner was known for espousing racist and achromatic supremacist views that truthful alienated different members that the nine asked him to permission the group.
“He made radical that uncomfortable,” said Seybold, who present besides is studying governmental subject astatine Florida State. “I personally cognize him to person complained astir however multiculturalism and communism are ruining America.”
Accused shooter transferred to Florida State from assemblage college
Ikner transferred to Florida State aft earning an subordinate grade astatine the assemblage college, schoolhouse officials said.
He didn't pull the attraction of the schoolhouse paper, different than commenting successful a FSU communicative astir a rally connected field against President Donald Trump.
Ikner, a registered Republican, described the protesters arsenic “entertaining” due to the fact that Trump was already acceptable to beryllium inaugurated. The comments person since been removed from the story, an editor's note saying the determination was to “avoid amplifying the dependable of an idiosyncratic liable for violence.”
Before Ikner’s Instagram was taken down, his bio quoted a verse from the Old Testament publication of Jeremiah. “Thou creation my conflict ax and weapons of war: for with thee volition I interruption successful pieces the nations, and with thee volition I destruct kingdoms,” reads Jeremiah 51:20, which scholars person interpreted to picture God’s judgement connected Babylon. The empire is simply a awesome successful the Bible of sinfulness and immorality.
Deputy's household has stayed quiescent for now
A Tallahassee Police Department patrol car was stationed Thursday evening adjacent the thoroughfare wherever the household lives, blocking reporters from approaching the family’s location successful a well-kept suburban vicinity connected the city’s eastbound side.
Phone messages near for Jessica Ikner astatine a fig listed for her connected a schoolhouse assets website and different telephone connected to her done nationalist records were not instantly returned Friday. And a sheriff’s bureau spokeswoman said she is not alert of the household putting retired a connection oregon having a household spokesperson.
The lone penetration comes from the past statements. Nearly a decennary ago, Jessica Ikner wrote a communicative posted connected the Tallahassee Family Magazine website astir children’s information portion surfing the internet, including tips to fortify household bonds.
“Build a trusting narration with your child," she wrote. "Let them cognize that if they bash marque a mistake they tin inactive travel to you astir anything.”
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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas. Associated Press writers Curt Anderson successful Tallahassee, David Fischer and Freida Frisaro successful Fort Lauderdale, Stephany Matat successful West Palm Beach, Michael Schneider successful Orlando, Mike Balsamo successful New York, Eric Tucker and Christopher Megerian successful Washington, and John Seewer successful Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.
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