The gunman in a fatal attack at Florida State University had a history of espousing radical right-wing conspiracy theories and hateful ideas.
www.usatoday.com
So there was a Florida State University school shooting recently that left 2 dead and numerous others wounded.
The shooter: Leon County Sheriff Walter A. McNeil identified the alleged gunman as 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, a student at Florida State University whose mother is a veteran Leon County sheriff deputy. McNeil said Ikner used a gun that belonged to his mother.
News that Ikner was the suspected gunman horrified people who knew him, but they said they weren't shocked given things he had said publicly.
According to the Florida native, Ikner touted right wing conspiracy theories and hateful ideas. Among them was a theory that President Joe Biden illegally came into office, “Rosa Parks was in the wrong” and Black people were ruining his neighborhood.
“I remember thinking this man should not have access to firearms,” Luzietti told USA TODAY. But, “what are you supposed to do? His mother was a cop and Florida doesn’t have very strong red flag laws.”
“It's so sad and so shocking,” Luzietti said of the shooting. “Then to see that it was him — I’m sadly not surprised.”
Reid Seybold, a former Tallahassee State College student who transferred to Florida State at the same time as Ikner, recalled how they crossed paths at their old school, according to NBC News.
Seybold said they belonged to a "political round table" club where the group eventually asked Ikner to leave over the hateful things he said.
"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," Seybold said.
thehill.com
