Florida State University shooter espoused white supremacist views: Report

The 20-year-old son of a sheriff’s deputy, who opened fire on Thursday at the United States' Florida State University, killing two people and wounding at least six others, espoused white supremacist views and was removed from a political club, NBC news reported, citing the group's president, Reid Seybold.

Reid Seybold claimed that he was part of a club with the suspect, identified as Phoenix Ikner, at Tallahassee State College, where they both attended before transferring to FSU. Seybold was president of a club called “political round table”, where Phoenix Ikner was asked not to return after repeated issues with the suspect's rhetoric, the report added.

Officers quickly arrived and shot and wounded the shooter after he refused to comply with commands, said Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell.

"Basically our only role 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 role," NBC News quoted Seybold as saying.

Seybold, now a political science senior at Florida State, was in the Bellamy Building, near the Student Union, when he and others heard gunshots.

“I was texting everybody I love, letting them know that I love them,” Seybold told them. "I was, I was getting ready to die," he added.

However, officers quickly arrived and shot and wounded the shooter after he refused to comply with commands, said Tallahassee Police chief Lawrence Revell.

Authorities have not yet revealed a motive for the shooting, which began around lunchtime just outside the student union, sending frightened students and parents hiding for cover in a bowling alley and a freight elevator inside the building.

Phoenix Ikner is believed to be a Florida State student, investigators said. The two people who died were not students, said Florida State University Police chief Jason Trumbower, adding that he would not release additional information about the victims.

The shooter obtained access to a weapon that belongs to his mother, who has been with the sheriff’s office for over 18 years and has been a model employee, said Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil. Police said they believed Ikner shot the victims using his mother's former service handgun, which she had kept for personal use after the force upgraded to new weapons.

The alleged shooter was a long-standing member of the sheriff’s office’s youth advisory council, the sheriff said.

“He has been steeped in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family, engaged in a number of training programs that we have,” McNeil said. “So it’s not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons.”

Witness says the suspect's shotgun jammed

Ambulances, fire trucks and patrol vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies raced toward the campus just west of Florida's capital after the university issued an active shooter alert.

Aidan Stickney, a 21-year-old studying business management, was running late to class when he said he saw a man get out of a car with a shotgun and aim at another man in a white polo shirt.

The gun jammed, Stickney said, and the shooter rushed back to his car and emerged with a handgun, opening fire on a woman. Stickney ran, warning others as he called 911.

“I got lucky today. I really did. I really, really did,” he said.

Trumbower said investigators have no evidence that anyone was shot with the shotgun.

(With inputs from AP)