Suspected Florida shooter has a history of espousing radical ideas. What did he say?

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The stepson of a Florida sheriff’s deputy suspected to be the gunman in an attack at Florida State University that killed two and injured six had a history of espousing radical conspiracy theories and hateful ideas, according to people who knew him and records of his online accounts. 

Leon County Sheriff Walter A. McNeil identified the alleged gunman as 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, a student at Florida State University whose stepmother is a veteran Leon County sheriff deputy. McNeil said Ikner used a gun that belonged to his stepmother. 

The suspected gunman opened fire near the university’s student union at approximately 11:50 a.m., striking multiple people and sending students fleeing for cover, said Florida State University Police Chief Jason Trumbower. Campus police responded immediately and "neutralized and apprehended" the suspect, Trumbower said. He was injured and was taken to a local hospital.

News that Ikner was the suspected gunman horrified people who knew him, but they said they weren't shocked given things he had said publicly.

“I got into arguments with him in class over how gross the things he said were,” Lucas Luzietti, a politics student who shared a class with Ikner, told Paste BN.

In 2023, the two took a course in federal politics, where they regularly clashed.

According to the Florida native, Ikner touted right wing conspiracy theories and hateful ideas. Among them was a theory that President Joe Biden illegally came into office, “Rosa Parks was in the wrong” and Black people were ruining his neighborhood. 

“I remember thinking this man should not have access to firearms,” Luzietti told Paste BN. But, “what are you supposed to do?"

Red flag laws allow people concerned over someone in crisis to petition a court to remove their access to guns.

Ikner made it clear to the class that he had guns, the Tallahassee State College student said.

Few students, if any, were close to Ikner, although he spoke with the professor regularly after class, Luzietti told Paste BN. 

“It's so sad and so shocking,” Luzietti said of the shooting. “Then to see that it was him — I’m sadly not surprised.”

Shooter had Nazi, Hitler fascination

Screenshots of Ikner’s online history captured by the Anti-Defamation League and shared with Paste BN on Friday show the gunman was an active gamer who had a troubling fascination with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. 

A profile photo for an online gaming account linked to Ikner shows a drawing of Hitler – recognizable by the mustache – with the word “Nein” in a thought bubble next to the infamous dictator.

For another online account, Ikner used the name “Schutzstaffel,” the name of the infamous SS paramilitary group that started out as Hitler’s personal bodyguard, grew to death squads and ran the concentration camps that killed millions of Jews in the Holocaust.

“Neither one means anything in particular but they’re part of the broader story,” Carla Hill, a senior director of investigative research at the anti-hate group’s center on extremism, said of Ikner’s apparent fascination with Nazis. “It gives us a little more insight into what he’s thinking about and curious about.”

Hill said a team of about 20 researchers combed through Ikner’s activity after he was identified as the shooter.

Other troubling signs, according to the ADL, include internet searches of the terms “scientific racism” and “national confederate flag.” The ADL collected the screenshots showing the searches from Ikner's frequent livestreams.

Another account linked to Ikner used the symbol for Patriot Front, the leading White nationalist group in the U.S. that formed in the aftermath of the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left a person dead, according to Hill.

“It’s just concerning,” said Hill. “What we’re seeing – if in fact this individual has extremist views and it seems at the very least he was exposed to extremism – is the continued crossover between extremism and the glorification of violence that eventually leads to violence.”

‘Steeped in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family’

Ikner was vocal in class and participated in the community in other ways, namely as a “longstanding member” of the sheriff office’s youth advisory council, according to McNeil.

The history of youth advisory councils for law enforcement goes back decades. Teen and young adult-led groups were created around the country in an effort to develop a better rapport between local police and young people in the community.

Typically, young people who join the councils are regarded as potential future community leaders or public servants. 

Ikner was a student at Lincoln High School when the sheriff’s office announced he was one of eight students to join the council. Lincoln touts itself as one of the top 100 public high schools in the nation.

Ikner was a familiar face at the sheriff’s office. 

“He has been steeped in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family, engaged in a number of training programs, so it’s not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons,” McNeil said. “This event is tragic in more ways than you people in the audience could ever [fathom] from a law enforcement perspective.”

McNeil said Ikner used a weapon that belonged to his stepmother, a member of the county sheriff’s office for 18 years.

“Her service to this community has been exceptional,” McNeil told reporters Thursday. “Unfortunately, her son had access to one of her weapons and that was one of the weapons that was found at the scene.”

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Ikner at Florida State

Ikner and Luzietti studied politics together at Tallahassee Community College and after moving to Florida State, Ikner continued his study of the subject, according to FSU News, a university outlet that’s part of the Paste BN Network.

The student paper quoted Ikner’s reaction to a protest held before President Donald Trump’s inauguration over the Republican leader’s anticipated agenda.

“These people are usually pretty entertaining, usually not for good reasons,” Ikner said then. “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.”

Reid Seybold, a former Tallahassee State College student who transferred to Florida State at the same time as Ikner, recalled how they crossed paths at their old school, according to NBC News.

Seybold said they belonged to a "political round table" club where the group eventually asked Ikner to leave over the hateful things he said.

"Basically our only rule was no Nazis — colloquially speaking — and he espoused so much white supremacist rhetoric, and far-right rhetoric as well, to the point where we had to exercise that rule," Seybold said.

(This story was updated to add new information.)