Florida State University shooter Phoenix Ikner touted vile white supremacist views that raised serious concerns among his classmates — including that “Rosa Parks was in the wrong” and that black people were destroying his community.
Ikner, who allegedly killed two people and wounded six others when he opened fire on campus Thursday, horrified other students with his “gross” racial rhetoric.
One classmate from Ikner’s former school, Tallahassee State College, recalled how he was asked to leave a “political round table” club over his hate speech.
“Basically our only rule was no Nazis — colloquially speaking — and he espoused so much white supremacist rhetoric, and far-right rhetoric as well, to the point where we had to exercise that rule,” Reid Seybold told the Tallahassee Democrat.
Another classmate said Ikner was vocal in their federal politics class, promoting his disturbing views about black people, as well as far-right conspiracy theories, such as that former President Joe Biden was fraudulently elected.
His opinions were so troubling that the classmate, Lucas Luzietti, chillingly remembered thinking that “this man should not have access to firearms.”
“I got into arguments with him in class over how gross the things he said were,” Lucas Luzietti told USA TODAY.
“I remember thinking this man should not have access to firearms,” he added.
“What are you supposed to do? His mother was a cop, and Florida doesn’t have very strong red flag laws.”
Here is the latest on the Florida State University shooting
Ikner, whose mother was a Leon County Sheriff’s deputy, made it very clear that he had guns, classmates said. One of the firearms he unloaded on Thursday is believed to belong to his mom.
“It’s so sad and so shocking,” Luzietti said of the shooting. “Then to see that it was him — I’m sadly not surprised.”
Officials say Ikner didn’t comply with commands and was shot before being taken into police custody on Thursday, April 18, 2025.
He was hospitalized for his injuries.
