The 20-year-old son of the deputy of a sheriff opened fire on Thursday with his mother’s former service weapon at Tallahassees Florida State University, killed two people and wounded at least six more, said the investigators.
Officers who arrived on the scene shot and wounded the man after refusing to adhere to the commands, said Lawrence Revell, chief of police from Tallahasee.
The authorities have not yet announced whether they have set a motive for the shootout, which began around the student association at lunchtime, sent students and frightened parents in a bowling alley and a freight elevator in the building.
Investigators said that the suspect identified by the police as Phoenix Ikner is accepted as a student in Florida.
The two deceased people were not students from the university, said Jason Trumbower, head of the Florida State University police authority.
The sheriff of Leon County, Walt McNeil, said that the alleged shooter had used the former service pistol of his mother, which the deputy of a sheriff considered personal use after the force was upgraded to new weapons. McNeil noted that she has been working in the sheriff’s office for over 18 years and is a model.
He also said the suspect was a long-time member of the Youth Board of the Sheriff office.
“He was permeated in the Leon County family and involved a number of training programs that we have,” said McNeil. “So it is no surprise for us that he had access to weapons.”
A shooter opened the fire at Florida State University on Thursday, killed two people and injured at least five more, said the police. The students described that listening to several shots ring and putting people as barricades when a shooter was distributed.
Ambulance, fire engines and patrol vehicles of several law enforcement agencies ran to the campus west of Florida’s capital after the university issued an active shooting alarm on Thursday and said the police were responding near the student union.
Aidan Stickney, a 21-year-old studied company management, was late for class when he said that he got a man out of a car with a shotgun and aimed at another man in a white polo shirt.
The weapon was fueled, said Stickney, and the shooter hurried back to his car and reappeared with a pistol and opened a woman. Stickney ran and warned different when he called 911.
“I was lucky today,” he said. “I really did it, really done.”
Trumbower said the investigators had no evidence that someone was shot with the shotgun.
“At that moment it was survival”
Frightened students and parents hid in a bowling alley and trudged in a freight elevator within the student association after hearing shots in front of the building.
Ryan Cedergren, a 21-year-old communications student, said he and about 30 others hid in the bowling alley at the lower level of the union after seeing students from a nearby bar out of nearby races.
“At that moment it was survival,” he said. After about 15 minutes, the police accompanied the university from the building, where Cedergren said that a person had an emergency treatment on the lawn.
Chris Pento told the TV station WCTV that he was on a campus tour with his twin children and that they would eat at noon at the student association when they heard shots.
“It was surreal. And people just started running,” he said. They packed into a service elevator after hit doors locked at the end of a hall.
“That was probably the scaryest point because we didn’t know. It could get worse, right?” he said. “The doors opened and two officers were there, weapons.”
The warning system of the state of Florida announced about three hours after the shootout that the law enforcement was “neutralized the threat”.
Officials asked students and faculties to avoid student association and other areas as an active crime scene.
Dozens of patrol vehicles, including a forensics van, were parked outside the student association.
After receiving warnings of an active shooter, students and faculties took cover and waited in classrooms, offices and dormitories on the entire campus.
“The first thing you think of is just ‘that can’t be true, isn’t it?” said Kai McGalla, a student in the second year who spoke by phone while he was closed in a campus test center.
The officials blocked the area with crime scene band. Students and employees who left telephones, keys and other objects in the hurry were waiting in the shade and prayed for the victims.
The Tallahassee Memorial Hospital confirmed that it treated six people who had been wounded in the shootings, including one who was in a critical condition. Trumbower said the shooter also received medical help.
“It’s a terrible thing”: Trump
US President Donald Trump said from the Oval Office that he was fully informed about the shootout.
“It’s a terrible thing. It is terrible that things like that take place,” he said.
But Trump also suggested that he would not work for a new weapon legislation and said: “The weapon does not make the shootout, people do it.”
University President Richard McCullough said that he was broken by violence with a broken heart. “Our hearts go to our students and the victims of this terrible tragedy,” he said.
Florida State University is one of the 12 public universities in Florida with its main campus in Tallahassee. According to the school’s 2024 fact, around 44,000 students are enrolled at the university.
In 2014, the main library was the place of a shootout that injured three people. Officers shot the shootout at this shootout, the 31-year-old Myron May.
The university has canceled all classes and events for Thursday as well as all sport sports events until Sunday.
