Two people were killed and at least five others were wounded Thursday when a gunman opened fire at Florida State University, and police said a 20-year-old suspect — the son of a sheriff’s deputy — was shot and taken into custody.
The university issued an active shooter alert at midday near the university’s student union. By midafternoon, Florida State’s alert system announced that law enforcement had “neutralised the threat.”
Some students and frightened parents hid in a bowling alley and crammed into a freight elevator inside the student union after hearing gunshots around 11.50 am ET outside the building. Ambulances, fire trucks, and patrol vehicles from several law enforcement agencies rushed toward the campus.
Hundreds of students streamed away from the direction of the student union. Students were glued to their phones, some visibly emotional. The university instructed students and faculty to seek shelter and await further instructions.
Officers quickly arrived and shot and wounded the shooter after he refused to comply with commands, said Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell, who said the suspect refused to speak with police afterward. Revell said it’s not believed that the suspect shot at officers.
A campus lockdown was lifted shortly after 3 pm EDT. Students and faculty were told to avoid the Student Union and several other areas still considered active crime scenes. People were otherwise free to move about the campus.
Dozens of patrol vehicles, including a forensics van, remained parked outside the student union. Officers blocked off the area with crime scene tape.
Florida State cancelled all classes and university events through Friday. All athletic events have been called off through Sunday.
The two people who died were not students at the university, said Florida State University Police Chief Jason Trumbower.
Five people were being treated at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, Trumbower said, and the shooter was also receiving medical attention.
A hospital spokesperson said one of the six people hospitalised was in critical condition and the other patients were in serious condition. The extent of the victims’ injuries — and those of the suspect — was not immediately known.
Leon County Sheriff Walter McNeil identified the suspect as Phoenix Ikner, the son of a sheriff’s deputy within his department. McNeil said the deputy’s former service weapon was used in the shooting and was found at the scene.
McNeil said Ikner was a longstanding member of the sheriff’s office’s youth advisory council and engaged in a number of training programmes with the office. He added that the suspect’s mother has been with the sheriff’s office for over 18 years.
“We will make sure that we do everything we can to prosecute and make sure that we send a message to folks that this will never be tolerated here in Leon County, and I dare say across the state and this nation,” McNeil said.
Trumbower said Ikner is believed to be an FSU student.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social media post that the Justice Department was in touch with FBI agents on the scene. President Donald Trump said from the Oval Office that he had been “fully briefed.” “It’s a horrible thing. It’s horrible that things like this take place,” Trump said.
FSU President Richard McCullough said he visited some of the wounded students in the hospital.
McCullough called campus police officers “absolute heroes” and said their response to the shooting “prevented this from being a bigger tragedy.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a message posted on social media that “we are all Seminoles today. We stand by to help in any way that we can.”
Founded in 1851, Florida State is one of Florida’s 12 public universities, with its main campus located in Tallahassee, just minutes from the state Capitol building. About 44,300 students are enrolled in the university, according to the school’s 2024 fact sheet.
The campus is located a few miles (kilometres) from Interstate 10, which crosses the state’s northernmost part from east to west. Tallahassee’s rolling hill country starkly contrasts with the rest of Florida’s primarily flat landscape.
Florida AM University is also in Tallahassee, the state’s capital city.
For some Florida State University faculty and staffers who have been on campus for many years, Thursday’s campus shooting brought back memories of another shooting at the school’s main library more than a decade ago.
Three people in 2014 were shot just outside and inside the entrance of Strozier Library in the middle of FSU’s campus. Officers who arrived within two minutes of the first call shot and killed the gunman, 31-year-old Myron May.
Three bullets struck 21-year-old student Farhan “Ronny” Ahmed, including a shot that severely damaged his spine and left him paralysed from the waist down. The other two victims were library employee Nathan Scott, who was shot in the leg and later released from the hospital, and a student who was grazed by a bullet.
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