The suspected Florida State University shooter was kicked out of an extracurricular political club because he made people “uncomfortable,” according to a fellow student.
Phoenix Ikner, an FSU student and the stepson of a deputy at the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, was identified by authorities as the gunman who carried out an attack on campus which left two dead and six people injured.
Speaking after the attack outside the student union on Thursday, fellow FSU student Reid Seybold told CNN that he knew the alleged shooter after they met at the political discussion club a few years ago. Seybold claimed Ikner had been pressured out of the group.
“He had continually made enough people uncomfortable where certain people had stopped coming,” Seybold said. “That’s kind of when we reached the breaking point with Phoenix, and we asked him to leave.”
Pressed on what exactly Ikner, 20, would say to make people uncomfortable, Seybold said that he couldn’t remember exact quotes.
“But whether it was in that club or in class, he talked about the ravages of multiculturalism and communism and how it’s ruining America,” Seybold said.
Seybold also disagreed with another student’s view that Ikner was “normal and nice,” rather than radical, in the discussion group.
“He went beyond conservatism,” Seybold told CNN.
The network noted that it has not independently verified Ikner’s views, and police have not yet released a possible motive for the attack.
Ikner is a registered Republican and was quoted in an FSU student publication about anti-Trump protests ahead of the president’s inauguration this year, according to CNN.
“I think it’s a little too late, he’s [Trump] already going to be inaugurated on Jan. 20 and there’s not really much you can do unless you outright revolt, and I don’t think anyone wants that,” Ikner, listed as a political science major, said at the time.
At a news conference Thursday, authorities said Ikner is the son of Leon County Sheriff’s Deputy Jessica Ikner, but court documents indicate that he is her stepson, according to ABC News.
The network also reported that the suspect is a dual U.S.-Norwegian citizen who changed his name from Christian Eriksen in 2020. As a child, he had been at the center of a custody battle between his biological mother, Anne-Mari Eriksen, and his father, Christopher Ikner.
His biological mother violated a custody agreement and took him to Norway under the nose of his father in 2015, according to a probable cause affidavit cited by ABC News.
At the time, Anne-Mari Eriksen allegedly told Christopher Ikner that she and the then-10-year-old were going on a Spring Break getaway to South Florida, then flew to Europe.
“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,” the affidavit states, according to ABC News.
The document reportedly states that the child was on medication for “several health and mental issues, [including] a growth hormone disorder and ADHD.”
Anne-Mari Eriksen was arrested when she returned to the U.S. and pleaded no contest to illegally removing a child from Florida, according to the report.
She later filed a lawsuit alleging slander and libel on behalf of herself and her son against Deputy Ikner and two other relatives, the report says, but a judge dismissed the case months later.
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