A 20-year-old Florida State University student opened fire near the campus Student Union Thursday, April 17, killing two men and wounding six others, police said. The shooter, identified as Phoenix Ikner, was shot by officers, hospitalized, and taken into custody, leaving a stunned community grappling with grief and questions.
The gunfire erupted around 11:50 a.m., sending students diving for cover in classrooms, a bowling alley, and elevators. FSU’s alert system blared at 12:01 p.m., urging everyone to:
“Lock and stay away from doors and windows.”
Ikner, armed with his mother’s former service handgun and a shotgun, fired about 30 shots, witnesses said, targeting people near the bustling Student Union.
“It was pure panic,” said Ava Arenado, a junior in a nearby class. “My friend got the alert, and our teacher started shoving desks against the door. We just waited, scared.”
Police swarmed the scene within minutes, joined by the FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Officers confronted Ikner, who ignored orders to drop his weapon, said Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell.
“He didn’t comply, so they shot him,” Revell said.
Ikner, wounded but stable, was among six taken to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, where one victim was in critical condition and five were serious.
The two people killed weren’t students, police said, but their names haven’t been released. Sheriff Walter McNeil, visibly shaken, revealed Ikner is the son of a Leon County deputy with 18 years of service. The handgun used was his mother’s old service weapon, kept after the department upgraded.
“Her service has been exceptional,” McNeil said. “But her son had access to that gun.”
Ikner, a Tallahassee native and member of the sheriff’s Youth Advisory Council, was a familiar face in law enforcement circles.
“He was always in good spirits,” said Jacob West, who knew him from the council in 2021. “Never talked about guns or trouble.”
Yet Ikner joined an anti-Trump protest in January, per FSU’s student paper, though his motive remains unclear.
The attack hit hard for some. Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter died in the 2018 Parkland shooting, said on X that some Parkland survivors, now at FSU, endured their second school shooting.
“Some were in the Union today,” he wrote.
Daniella Streety, a student across from the Union, saw people flee as sirens wailed.
“It felt unreal,” she told ABC News.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Ryan Cedergren, who hid in the Union’s bowling alley. “I hang out there all the time. Now it’s a crime scene.”
FSU canceled classes through Friday and all athletics through Sunday, urging students to avoid campus. The Donald L. Tucker Civic Center became a reunification hub, offering counseling. A campus safety event, planned with Maura’s Voice to honor a 2018 yoga studio shooting victim, was postponed. Nearby Florida A&M University closed Friday in solidarity.
President Donald Trump, briefed before a White House meeting, called it:
“A horrible thing,”
but deflected gun law questions, saying:
“The gun doesn’t shoot, people do.”
Governor Ron DeSantis posted on X:
“Our prayers are with our FSU family.”
This wasn’t FSU’s first tragedy. A 2014 library shooting left three injured and the gunman dead. Thursday’s attack was Florida’s sixth mass shooting in 2025, per the Gun Violence Archive, renewing safety fears.
“We thought we were past this,” said Kai McGalla, a sophomore locked in a testing center.
Police are digging through multiple crime scenes, with the FBI collecting tips online.
“We’ve got hundreds of witnesses,” Revell said.
For now, FSU’s campus, dotted with makeshift memorials, sits quiet, as students and families mourn and wait for answers.