TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Amid the deserted chemistry notes and different particles left behind after a deadly shooting at Florida State University are lingering questions on how the stepson of a beloved sheriff’s deputy tasked with college security at a center college grew to become the accused gunman.
Political science scholar Phoenix Ikner was a long-standing member of a sheriff’s workplace youth advisory council and was steeped within the family-like tradition of the company. When officers rushed to the college’s scholar union on reviews of gunfire, authorities say it was the 20-year-old who used his stepmother’s former service weapon to open fireplace, killing two men and wounding six others.
As people fled in terror, Ikner was shot and brought into custody. He invoked his proper to not communicate to investigators, and his motive stays unknown as he lies in a hospital mattress.
The prosecutor’s workplace is weighing doable expenses as tales emerge a few darker aspect. One classmate recalled him being kicked out of a scholar membership over feedback that different members discovered troubling.
“That is horrific,” Jimmy Williams, the chief of security for Leon County Faculties, stated of the capturing. “This can be a horrible, horrible occasion.”
Williams, who has identified Ikner’s stepmother, Jessica Ikner, for a decade, stated the allegations underscore that “none of us are proof against tragedy.”
Courses and enterprise operations will resume Monday, Florida State introduced over the weekend.
“I do know it gained’t really feel like a traditional week,” FSU President Richard McCullough stated in message to college students and staff Saturday. “It’s the final one earlier than finals, and lots of of you’re nonetheless processing what occurred. Please care for your self.”
Suspect is the stepson of a beloved deputy
His stepmother, whose personal alma mater is Florida State, was reassigned from her place as a faculty useful resource officer Friday and granted the private depart she requested, a sheriff’s workplace spokesperson informed The Related Press.
When the alert went out of an energetic shooter at Florida State College, Jessica Ikner was on obligation round 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away at Raa Center College. A sheriff’s workplace spokesperson stated Jessica Ikner labored to safe the campus to stop anybody from getting into as Raa went into “lockout mode,” together with all the county’s public colleges. She was practiced at this work.
Final yr, she was named an “worker of the month” by the sheriff’s workplace, the place she has labored for 18 years.
Police stated they believed Phoenix Ikner shot the victims utilizing his stepmother’s former service handgun, which she had stored for private use after the drive upgraded its weapons.
Leon County Sheriff Walter McNeil described Phoenix Ikner on Thursday as having been “steeped within the Leon County Sheriff’s Workplace household” and engaged in a lot of sheriff’s workplace coaching packages, including that it wasn’t a shock that he would have entry to weapons.
There was no document of him having a prison document. And in Florida, coaching and a background test usually are not required to hold hid weapons in public.
Custody disputes and identify change in his childhood
When Ikner was a toddler, his mother and father have been concerned in a number of custody disputes along with his organic mom, court docket data present.
In 2015, when he was 10, his organic mom, Anne-Mari Eriksen, stated she was taking him to South Florida for spring break in 2015 however as an alternative traveled to Norway. After returning to the U.S., she pleaded no contest to eradicating a minor from the state in opposition to a court docket order and was sentenced to 200 days in jail. She later moved to vacate her plea, however that was denied.
Within the fall of that very same yr, Eriksen filed a civil libel-slander criticism in opposition to Jessica Ikner, together with a number of different relations. The criticism, which was later dismissed, accused them of harassing Eriksen and abusing Ikner’s place on the sheriff’s workplace.
In 2020, at age 15, the suspect acquired court docket approval to vary his identify from Christian Eriksen to Phoenix Ikner, court docket paperwork present. His outdated identify was a continuing reminder of a “tragedy” he suffered, within the phrases of administrative Justice of the Peace James Banks, who permitted the request, NBC Information reported.
Banks noticed that Ikner was a “mentally, emotionally and bodily mature younger grownup who could be very articulate” and “very well mannered” stated he selected the brand new identify as a illustration of “rising from the ashes anew.”
Classmate says there have been issues in regards to the accused shooter
Reid Seybold and his classmates have been engaged on a gaggle undertaking in a constructing positioned a brief, three-minute stroll from the scholar union when somebody ran in and warned them in regards to the gunfire. They huddled collectively, the 22-year-old stated, frantically firing off what they thought may be their remaining textual content messages to family members.
When Seybold discovered who the suspect within the capturing was — that it was somebody he is aware of — he was overcome with anger. Seybold was the president of a membership that Phoenix Ikner joined after they have been each finding out at the area people faculty, now known as Tallahassee State School.
“He would complain about Black individuals fairly often, particularly when conversations of police brutality would come up,” Seybold stated.
Seybold stated Ikner was identified for espousing racist and white supremacist views that so alienated different members that the membership requested him to go away the group.
“He made people who uncomfortable,” stated Seybold, who now is also finding out political science at Florida State. “I personally know him to have complained about how multiculturalism and communism are ruining America.”
‘Pathway to violence’
A key a part of the investigation will doubtless give attention to what might need led to what specialists name the “pathway to violence,” stated Kenneth Trump, president of Nationwide College Security and Safety Companies, a Cleveland-based consulting agency.
“The query is, what was the motivation, what was the grievance?,” stated Trump, who wrote the e-book “Sensible College Safety: Primary Tips for Secure and Safe Faculties.” (He’s not associated to the U.S. president).
“Often, they construct up over time by means of some sort of grievance in opposition to individuals,” Trump stated. “The questions within the upcoming days are, have been there warning indicators, what have been these warnings indicators, and in the event that they have been there, who knew?”
Accused shooter transferred to Florida State from group faculty
Ikner transferred to Florida State after incomes an affiliate diploma on the group faculty, college officers stated.
He didn’t entice the eye of the college paper, aside from commenting in a FSU story a few rally on campus in opposition to President Donald Trump.
Ikner, a registered Republican, described the protesters as “entertaining” as a result of Trump was already set to be inaugurated. The feedback have since been faraway from the story, an editor’s note saying the transfer was to “keep away from amplifying the voice of a person answerable for violence.”
Earlier than Ikner’s Instagram was taken down, his bio quoted a verse from the Previous Testomony e-book of Jeremiah. “Thou artwork my battle ax and weapons of struggle: for with thee will I break in items the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms,” reads Jeremiah 51:20, which students have interpreted to depict God’s judgment on Babylon. The empire is an emblem within the Bible of sinfulness and immorality.
Deputy’s household has stayed quiet for now
A Tallahassee Police Division patrol automotive was stationed Thursday night close to the road the place the household lives, blocking reporters from approaching the household’s residence in a well-kept suburban neighborhood on the town’s east aspect.
Cellphone messages left for Jessica Ikner at a quantity listed for her on a faculty useful resource web site and one other telephone linked to her by means of public data weren’t instantly returned Friday. And a sheriff’s workplace spokeswoman stated she will not be conscious of the household placing out a press release or having a household spokesperson.
The one perception comes from the previous statements. Practically a decade in the past, Jessica Ikner wrote a narrative posted on the Tallahassee Household Journal web site about youngsters’s security whereas browsing the web, together with tricks to strengthen household bonds.
“Construct a trusting relationship along with your little one,” she wrote. “Allow them to know that in the event that they do make a mistake they’ll nonetheless come to you about something.”
Picture: An impromptu memorial close to the Pupil Union constructing on Thursday. (AP Picture/Gary McCullough)
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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas. Related Press writers Curt Anderson in Tallahassee, David Fischer and Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Stephany Matat in West Palm Seaside, Michael Schneider in Orlando, Mike Balsamo in New York, Eric Tucker and Christopher Megerian in Washington, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed.
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