FSU shooting suspect released from hospital, faces murder charges
TALLAHASSEE, FL ‒ A Florida State University student accused of fatally shooting two people and injuring six others on campus in April has been released from the hospital and faces murder charges, authorities said.
Phoenix Ikner, 20, was discharged from Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare on May 12 and faces two counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder, according to the Tallahassee Police Department. Ikner was initially booked into the Leon County Detention Facility before being transferred to the Wakulla County Detention Facility, the Leon County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
His out-of-county transfer was "standard protocol" because his stepmother is a school resource deputy for Leon County, according to the sheriff's office. Tallahassee police said the probable cause affidavit detailing Ikner's crimes will be released after his first court appearance on May 13.
Ikner was charged by the State Attorney’s Office with two counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder. Robert Morales and Tiru Chabba were killed in the rampage.
"In any case, especially one of this magnitude, the Tallahassee Police Department has the highest commitment to justice, transparency, and the safety of our community," Tallahassee Chief Lawrence Revell said in a statement. "We are grateful for the work of our detectives, officers, medical personnel, and partner agencies who helped bring us to this point."
What happened in the FSU shooting?
Authorities said a suspect opened fire near FSU's student union at about 11:50 a.m. on April 17, striking multiple people and triggering a campus-wide lockdown as students ran for cover.
Campus police arrived at the scene "almost immediately" and shot the suspect, who did not respond to commands, Revell said at the time. The suspect was taken into custody and transported to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare with "serious but non-life-threatening injuries," according to Revell.
Morales and Chabba, who were not students, were pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. Six people were hospitalized in fair condition, including five who suffered gunshot wounds and another person who was injured while running away from the shooting, according to Revell.
At the scene, investigators recovered a handgun that belonged to the suspect's stepmother, a veteran deputy with the Leon County Sheriff's Office, said Sheriff Walt McNeil. The suspect’s mother has served on the Leon County Sheriff’s Office for over 18 years, according to McNeil.
Authorities identified the suspect as Ikner, an FSU student majoring in political science, who previously attended trainings held by the Leon County Sheriff's Office and was a member of its youth advisory council.
"He has been steeped in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family, engaged in a number of training programs that we have," McNeil said. "So it’s not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons."
Tallahassee police later revealed that Ikner "was shot once, in the jaw" and had been "neutralized" by an FSU police officer early in his attack.
Ikner was released from the hospital on May 12, "following an extended stay and multiple surgeries to treat injuries he sustained during the April 17 shooting," Tallahassee police said.
Suspected FSU shooter's online history showed far-right views
Some of Ikner's classmates have said he espoused white supremacist and far-right views. Screenshots of Ikner’s online history captured by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and shared with Paste BN also showed that the suspect, who was an active gamer, had a fascination with with Adolf Hitler, Nazis and other hate groups.
On one of Ikner's online gaming accounts, he used a drawing of Hitler as a profile picture, according to the ADL. On another account, Ikner used "Schutzstaffel," the name of the paramilitary group under Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Ikner also previously spent more than an hour on his YouTube channel defending a far-right racist conspiracy theory ‒ the same one that motivated some of the bloodiest mass shootings in history, the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the Paste BN Network, reported.
In 2022, Ikner dedicated one video entirely to the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, a debunked but increasingly mainstreamed belief that liberal immigration policies in the West are part of an effort to supplant White people with non-whites, particularly Muslims.
In the video, Ikner mentioned two attacks: the 2011 Norway terrorist attacks that killed 77 people and a 2022 shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket that left 10 Black people dead.
A motive for the FSU shooting remains unknown, and police have said it appears Ikner targeted people at random rather than because of their race.
Contributing: Michael Loria and Christopher Cann, Paste BN; Arianna Otero, Tallahassee Democrat