Two people were killed while a gunman opened fire at Florida State University on Thursday, and five others were injured, police said a 20-year-old suspect — the son of the sheriff’s deputy — was shot and detained.
The university issued an active shooter alert at noon near the university student union. By afternoon, Florida’s alert system announced a “neutralizing threat” from law enforcement.
Response to the shooting
Some students and scared parents hid in the bowling alley and squeezed into the freight elevator inside the student union after hearing gunfire at around 11.50 a.m. outside the building. Ambulances, fire trucks and patrol vehicles from several law enforcement agencies rushed to the campus.
Hundreds of students left the student union direction. The students were stuck to their phones, and they were somewhat emotional. The university directs students and faculty to seek shelter and awaits further instructions.
Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell said officers arrived quickly and injured the shooter after refusing to comply with the order. Revell said the suspect did not believe that the officer was shot.
Campus lockdown was cancelled shortly after 3 p.m. ET. Students and faculty members are told to avoid active crime scenes that are still being considered in student unions and several other areas. Otherwise, people can move freely around campus.
Dozens of patrol vehicles, including forensic vans, were still parked outside the student union. The officers blocked the area with crime scene videotapes.
Florida State University canceled all courses and college events by Friday. All sports events have been cancelled by Sunday.
Who is the victim?
Florida State University Police Chief Jason Trumbower said the two people who died were not college students.
Truban Ball said five people were treated at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and the shooter was also treated with medical care.
A hospital spokesman said one of the six people hospitalized was in critical condition and the other patients were in serious condition. The extent of the victim’s injury and the extent of the suspect’s injury have not been immediately known.
Who is the suspect?
Leon County Sheriff Walter McNeil identified the suspect as Phoenix Ikner, the son of the sheriff in the department. McNeill said the deputy’s former service weapon was used in the shooting and was found at the scene.
McNeil said Ikner is a long-time member of the Sheriff’s Office’s Youth Advisory Board and has conducted many training programs with the office. He added that the suspect’s mother had worked in the sheriff’s office for more than 18 years.
“We will make sure we do everything we can to prosecute and make sure we get a message to people that in Leon County, that will never be tolerated, I dare say in the whole state and in this country.”
Trumbower said Ikner is considered a student at FSU.
What do others think about the shooting?
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social media post that the Justice Department is in touch with FBI agents on the spot. President Donald Trump said in the Oval Office that he had “completely briefly”. “It’s a terrible thing. It’s terrible to happen like this,” Trump said.
FSU president Richard McCullough said he visited some injured students at the hospital.
McCullough called campus police “absolute heroes” and said their response to the shooting “stopped it’s a bigger tragedy.” “We are all Seminoles today. We do everything we can to help in any way,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a message posted on social media.
Where is Florida?
Founded in 1851, Florida is one of the 12 public universities in Florida. Its main campus is in Tallahassee, just minutes from the State Capitol Building. According to the school’s 2024 profile, the university has approximately 44,300 students enrolled.
The campus is located a few miles (km) from Interstate 10 (km) and the state crosses the northernmost part of the state from east to west. The Rolling Hill Country of Tallahassee is in stark contrast to the rest of Florida’s main flat landscape.
The University of Florida AM University is also located in Tallahassee, the capital of the state.
Have there been any shootings in FSU before?
For some Florida State University faculty and staff who have worked on campus for years, Thursday’s campus shooting brought back another shot that was shot in the school’s main library more than a decade ago.
In 2014, three people were shot dead at the entrance to the Strozier Library in the middle of the FSU campus. The officer who arrived within two minutes of the first call killed the gunman of 31-year-old Myron May.
Three bullets hit Farhan “Ronny” Ahmed, 21, and included shots that severely damaged his spine, paralyzing him from the waist. The other two victims were library employee Nathan Scott, who was shot in the leg and later released from the hospital, and a student grazing with bullets.
