FSU Shooting: Police Officer's Son Kills 2, Injures 6 in Attack

Photo: AP

A tragic shooting took place at Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, Florida, when a 20-year-old student named Phoenix Ikner opened fire near the student union building. The shooting occurred around lunchtime, killing two people and injuring six others.

Phoenix Ikner is the son of Jessica Ikner, a police officer in Leon County. She was a resource officer at a school and had kept her old service weapon when the police department upgraded its guns. The gun used in the shooting was one that belonged to her. Authorities found a shotgun at the scene as well.

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The motive for the shooting is not clear, and the two people who were killed were not students at the university. Their identities have not been released. Phoenix Ikner was shot by police and taken to the hospital.

Sheriff Walt McNeil said that Phoenix was a well-known figure in the community. He was a member of the sheriff’s youth advisory council and had participated in various training programs. So, it wasn’t surprising that he had access to weapons. Phoenix had also been a part of a protest on campus against President Donald Trump's inauguration in January, as reported by the student newspaper. However, his quote was later removed from the article.

Students at FSU received an alert around noon to warn them about the shooting. They were told to "seek shelter and await further instructions." Some students, like Ava Arenado, heard the alert and passed it on to others in their class. Another student, Blake Leonard, heard around 12 shots at first, but thought it was just construction work. When he saw people running away from the union building and heard more shots, he quickly ran to safety.

President Donald Trump was briefed on the situation before meeting with the Italian Prime Minister. He called the incident a "horrible thing" and expressed his support for the Second Amendment, which protects the right to own guns in the U.S. He said, "We will have more to say about it later."

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also shared his thoughts, saying that his "prayers are with the FSU family" and that state law enforcement was actively responding to the situation.

This is not the first shooting at FSU. In 2015, a former student shot and injured three people at the university library before he was fatally shot by police.

Fred Guttenberg, the father of a girl who was killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, shared that some students who survived the Parkland attack were on the FSU campus during this shooting. He expressed his shock on social media, saying that some of the survivors were now experiencing their second school shooting.

The shooting has left many people shaken, and the community is grieving.