FSU shooting: Mom speaks out after suspected shooter son is identified as ‘white supremacist’
Phoenix Ikner was removed from a school political club over ‘far-right rhetoric’ he shared, his classmates claim
The suspect in the Florida State University shooting reportedly shared “white supremacist views” with concerned classmates before yesterday’s attack that killed two people and injured six others.
Phoenix Ikner had a tumultuous childhood, according to court records showing the biological mother of the 20-year-old was accused of removing him from the U.S. when he was 10.
He later changed his name from Christian Eriksen to share the surname of his mother, Leon County Deputy Jessica Ikner, whose former service weapon he used during the shooting, police said.
His biological mother, Anne-Mari Eriksen, told ABC News on Friday that she initially worried he might have been hurt; when he was named a suspect, she “collapsed.”
"There’s so much that needs to be said about this, but I just can’t talk without crying. We need time to process all this,” she said.
Following the attack, a classmate at Ikner’s former school claimed the suspect was told to leave a “political round table” club after he “espoused so much white supremacist rhetoric, and far-right rhetoric as well, to the point where we had to exercise that rule.”
Once Ikner is released from the hospital, where he is expected to be for a while, he’ll be “taken to a local detention facility where he will face the charges up to and including first-degree murder,” Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell said Friday.
Investigators had not revealed a motive as of Friday evening or released the victims’ identities, but some family members have come forward.
The two victims who lost their lives were identified Friday as Tiru Chabba and Robert Morales. Both men were fathers.
Inside the suspected shooter's tumultuous childhood
Suspected gunman Phoenix Ikner, 20, was described by Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil after the attack on Thursday as the son of one of his deputies, Jessica Ikner. McNeil said the suspect had used her weapon to carry out the shooting at Florida State University (FSU)’s Tallahassee campus.
But reports have now emerged of court records stating that Ikner’s birth name was Christian Gunnar Eriksen and that another woman, Anne-Mari Eriksen, is his biological mother.
Eriksen – who, like her son, is said to have dual U.S.-Norwegian citizenship – appears to have separated from the boy’s father Christopher Ikner but allegedly ran into trouble in March 2015 when she took the boy to Norway without the latter’s consent, in violation of their custody arrangements.
“Instead of staying in South Florida, the defendant allegedly fled the country with him in violation of their custody agreement,” an affidavit cited by ABC News states.
“Mr Ikner advised that Christian has developmental delays and has special needs which he feared would not be taken care of without access to his doctors here in the United States.”
Joe Sommerlad has the story.
FSU shooting suspect Phoenix Ikner had ‘tumultuous childhood,’ court records reveal
Suspect's mother speaks out in first public comments after shooting
The biological mother of Phoenix Ikner has spoken out for the first time since her son was suspected of opening fire at FSU’s campus Thursday.
The Leon County sheriff revealed at a press conference in the wake of the deadly incident that Ikner was the son of a Leon County sheriff’s deputy, Jessica Ikner. It has since been reported that his biological parents are Anne-Mari Eriksen and his father Christopher Ikner.
“When I heard what had happened, I was frantic -- thought he might be the one hurt. And then when I found out it was him I just collapsed at work," Eriksen told ABC News on Friday.
"There’s so much that needs to be said about this, but I just can’t talk without crying. We need time to process all this,” she told the outlet.