Authorities report that the individual suspected of fatally shooting two people and injuring five others at Florida State University on Thursday is the son of a local sheriff’s deputy. Furthermore, it has come to light that in the years preceding the alleged attack, he spent time training with law enforcement and served on a sheriff’s advisory council.
Upon being taken into custody, 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner was found to be in possession of a handgun that was formerly the service weapon of sheriff’s deputy Jessica Ikner, according to officials and publicly available records.
A review of court documents reveals that Phoenix Ikner experienced a troubled childhood. Another woman, identified in these documents as his biological mother, was accused of taking him out of the United States in violation of a custody agreement when he was just 10 years old.
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Sheriff Walter McNeil informed reporters that the suspect was “deeply connected to the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family and participated in several of our training programs, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected that he had access to weapons.”
McNeil stated that Jessica Ikner has served with the sheriff’s department for over 18 years, adding that “her dedication to this community has been outstanding.” She did not respond to requests for comments.
Phoenix Ikner was a member of the sheriff’s Youth Advisory Council, an organization designed to “foster open communication between the young people of Leon County and local law enforcement,” as stated in a press release from 2021. McNeil described him as a “longstanding member” of this council.
Advertisement Feedback An Instagram account bearing Ikner’s name and photo, which was taken offline after his public identification, featured a biblical quote in its profile: “You are my war club, my weapon for battle; with you I shatter nations, with you I destroy kingdoms.”
According to Florida voter registration records, Ikner is a registered Republican. He was quoted in January in an FSU student newspaper article discussing anti-Trump protests leading up to the president’s inauguration.
A selfie of FSU shooting suspect Phoenix Ikner taken from social media. From social media
“These individuals are usually quite entertaining, though typically not for positive reasons,” Ikner, identified as a political science major, was quoted as saying. “I believe it’s a bit late; he [Trump] is already set to be inaugurated on January 20th, and there isn’t much that can be done unless there’s an outright revolt, which I don’t think anyone desires.”
Ikner Asked to Leave Political Club Due to Disturbing Behavior
Reid Seybold, an FSU student, shared with a news outlet that he knew Ikner from an extracurricular political club a few years prior. Seybold mentioned that Ikner was asked to leave the group, which focused on current events, due to behavior that made others uneasy.
“He consistently made enough people uncomfortable that some individuals stopped attending. That’s when we reached a breaking point with Phoenix, and we asked him to leave,” Seybold told the news outlet’s reporter on Thursday.
Seybold noted that Ikner’s comments went “beyond conservatism.”
“It’s been a couple of years, so I can’t recall exact quotes,” he said. “He spoke about the destructive effects of multiculturalism and communism and how they are ruining America.”
The news outlet has not independently verified claims regarding the suspect’s beliefs. Authorities have not yet disclosed any potential motive behind the shooting incident.
Leon County court records indicate that Ikner’s biological mother was accused of taking him to Norway when he was 10 years old, in violation of a custody agreement. The court documents refer to the child as Christian Eriksen and state that both he and his biological mother hold dual US-Norwegian citizenship.
A law enforcement source confirmed to the news outlet that the shooting suspect later changed his name from Christian Eriksen to Phoenix Ikner.
According to an affidavit from a sheriff’s detective, the child’s biological mother informed his father that she would take him to South Florida for spring break in March 2015. Instead, the affidavit states, she “fled the country with him in violation of their custody agreement,” taking him to Norway.
The suspect’s biological mother entered a plea of no contest to the charge of removing a minor from the state against a court order. Court records show she was sentenced to 200 days in jail, with 170 days credited as already served, followed by two years of “community control” and then two years of probation. She was also ordered to have no contact during her sentence with her son or any of his teachers, doctors, or counselors, unless authorized by a court.
She later attempted to withdraw her plea, claiming she made it under duress, but her request was denied.
It remains unclear whether the suspect’s biological mother has had contact with him over the past decade, and she did not respond to requests for comment. However, shortly after the shooting, she posted on Facebook expressing her concern that her son’s father hadn’t replied when she wrote “to ask if everything is alright with my son, who studies at FSU.”
Community members have expressed that they are still struggling to reconcile Phoenix Ikner’s connections to the police force with his alleged violent actions.
Kenniyah Houston, a member of the sheriff’s youth council, told a news outlet that she was shocked to learn that the suspected shooter had been involved with the same council. While she did not personally remember Ikner, she emphasized that the advisory council’s focus was on improving the community and law enforcement, making his alleged actions particularly disturbing.
“That’s what it was all about – making better decisions,” she said. “For something like this to happen from someone in a group like that is scary … it’s devastating.”
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