In a news conference hours after the first reports of the active shooting were announced, Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil identified the suspect.
“The shooter is 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner … and he is the son of a Leon County sheriff’s deputy,” McNeil said.
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According to Revell during the news conference, Jessica Ikner [the shooter’s mother] is a school resource officer in Leon County. The county sheriff’s office website lists her as a “middle schools deputy.”
Deputy Ikner was awarded law enforcement employee of the month in March 2024, the sheriff’s office posted on Facebook.
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[The Shooter] was “a long-standing member” of the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Youth Advisory Council, McNeil said during the news conference.
“He has been steep in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Family,” McNeil said, adding that it is “not a surprise” that Ikner had access to weapons.
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(apologies for possibly paywalled link, try internet archive if its blocked for you)
Phoenix Ikner, a 20-year-old son of a sheriff’s deputy whom police accuse of using his mother’s gun, is in police custody after being identified as a suspect in a shooting on Florida State University’s campus Thursday, which killed two people and injured at least six others.
Jessica Ikner, a beloved Raa Middle School student resource deputy, was the 2023 law enforcement officer of the year with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office.
She also practiced shooting with her stepson, Phoenix, at a firing range, but “not in an official capacity,” according to LCSO.
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Yeah so this guy was trained to shoot by his armed-with-a-firearm, middle school guard / county deputy mom, and he then took his mom’s service pistol to shoot up his own school/uni.
I can’t find more details on the shotgun, but it could also be the case that that is or was a service weapon as well… but that is barely informed speculation on my part, I just know that a lot of US cops also have a shotgun in their cruiser.
They know it’ll be click bait because it will be read as:
“The weapon used is a weapon that is the service weapon of a deputy”, and not:
“At one point, in the past, the weapon used was a service weapon but isn’t any longer”.
Him using a service weapon implies that there was a lapse of security on his mother’s part. That’s why it’s being mentioned in the way that it is because, if it were true, it would be outrageous.
The fact that an adult Florida man was able to access privately owned firearms isn’t news. But making it seem scandalous by implying that he killed people with a weapon issued as the service weapon of an active duty cop gets clicks.
The shotgun story is based on first hand accounts that I’ve heard from the FSU students that I work with. I’m obviously just a random Internet person, so don’t believe it until you see other sources.
That pistol he grabbed from the vehicle…
…was his Mom’s old service pistol.
His Mom was a school resource officer and later deputized into the Leon County Sheriffs.
https://www.newsweek.com/fsu-shooter-leon-county-deputy-phoenix-jessica-ikner-2061301
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…
…
(apologies for possibly paywalled link, try internet archive if its blocked for you)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/04/18/florida-state-university-shooting-what-we-know-about-the-suspect/
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https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/2025/04/18/fsu-shooting-phoenix-ikener-fired-guns-deputy-mother-jessica-ikner/83159241007/
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Yeah so this guy was trained to shoot by his armed-with-a-firearm, middle school guard / county deputy mom, and he then took his mom’s service pistol to shoot up his own school/uni.
I can’t find more details on the shotgun, but it could also be the case that that is or was a service weapon as well… but that is barely informed speculation on my part, I just know that a lot of US cops also have a shotgun in their cruiser.
The headline is using ‘was’ as a weasel word.
They know it’ll be click bait because it will be read as:
“The weapon used is a weapon that is the service weapon of a deputy”, and not:
“At one point, in the past, the weapon used was a service weapon but isn’t any longer”.
Him using a service weapon implies that there was a lapse of security on his mother’s part. That’s why it’s being mentioned in the way that it is because, if it were true, it would be outrageous.
The fact that an adult Florida man was able to access privately owned firearms isn’t news. But making it seem scandalous by implying that he killed people with a weapon issued as the service weapon of an active duty cop gets clicks.
The shotgun story is based on first hand accounts that I’ve heard from the FSU students that I work with. I’m obviously just a random Internet person, so don’t believe it until you see other sources.