FSU Shooting: What to Know About Suspect who's Son of Fla. Deputy

By Ana Claudia Chacin and Claire Healy

Source Miami Herald

The Leon County Sheriff’s Office is reeling after learning that the 20-year-old suspect in a mass shooting on Florida State University’s campus is the son of one of their own — raised by a sheriff’s deputy and trained by sheriff’s deputies.

Phoenix Ikner was shot by police after opening fire on FSU’s campus around 11:50 a.m. on Thursday, killing two people and wounding six more, police say.

The son of a school resource deputy at Raa Middle School in Leon County, he was a member of the department’s Youth Advisory Council. The handgun used during the shooting was the former service weapon of his mother, Jessica Ikner, who was allowed to buy the weapon for her personal use, police said. She also attended FSU, according to her LinkedIn.

“He has been steeped in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family, engaged in a number of training programs that we have,” Sheriff Walter A. McNeil said at a news conference on FSU’s campus following the shooting. “So it’s not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons.”

McNeil said the shooting “is tragic in more ways than you people in the audience could ever (fathom.)”

Ian Townsend, 22, who is a sophomore at Tallahassee State College and took two classes with Ikner at the college last Fall, told The Miami Herald that the suspected shooter was often quiet — except for some comments about politics.

He said that Ikner would often wear a National Riffle Association t-shirt and a shirt that read “Don’t tread on me.” He also had badges on his backpack supporting police. On the day after President Donald Trump’s election, Ikner walked into their Oceanography class with a Trump hat on, Townsend said.

Ikner is a registered Republican, according to Florida Election records. Townsend said the one interaction they had was about a constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana. Townsend was a proponent of the measure — and wearing a shirt from a dispensary — and Ikner opposed it.

“He would say right-wing things, although he never said anything about Trump specifically until after the election,” Townsend said.

Townsend said he was stunned when he realized the FSU suspected shooter was the same person who sat two rows in front of him in one of his classes. He had been sitting in a circle with some of his friends who had just been on lockdown for three hours and discussing what had happened when one of them showed them a screenshot of Ikner’s instagram page.

“I didn’t know what to say,” Townsend said. “I was just like with my hands on my head for like 10 seconds.”

Tallahassee police officers on Thursday were blocking off both roads that lead to the house Ikner listed as his address on his voter registration.

On Jan. 19, FSU News covered a protest against Trump led by a student organization called Tallahassee Students for a Democratic Society. A reporter interviewed Ikner, and quoted him in the article as a political science student. The quote has since been removed from the article by the editors.

“These people are usually pretty entertaining, usually not for good reasons,” Ikner said in the article. “I think it’s a little too late, he’s (Trump) already going to be inaugurated on Jan. 20 and there’s not really much you can do unless you outright revolt, and I don’t think anyone wants that.”

Jessica Ikner, the suspect’s mother, has been a deputy with the department for more than 18 years and has done a “tremendous job”, McNeil, the Leon County Sheriff said during the news conference.

“Her service to this community has been exceptional,” he said. He added that she had not been suspended, but that the matter would be investigated.

Herald/Times reporters Ana Ceballos and Romy Ellenbogen contributed to this report.

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