Live updates: 2 killed and 5 injured in mass shooting at Florida State University | CNN (2025)

Reid Seybold speaks with CNN.

Reid Seybold, a Florida State University student, told CNN he knew suspected gunman Phoenix Ikner, whom he encountered in an extracurricular political club a few years ago.

Seybold said Ikner was asked to leave the group, which discussed current events, due to behavior that unsettled others.

Seybold said Ikner’s comments went “beyond conservatism.”

CNN has not independently verified claims about the suspect’s beliefs. Authorities have not yet disclosed any potential motive behind the shooting.

Seybold recounted to CNN the terrifying moments when gunshots erupted near his classroom. He said he and his classmates “did as we were taught to do in high school”: turn off the lights, lock the door and barricade themselves under their desks.

In those tense moments, Seybold and his classmates sought comfort in one another.

Sam Swartz speaks with CNN.

Sam Swartz, a senior at Florida State University, was in the basement of the student union when the attack occurred nearby and told CNN he remembered his high school training on school shootings.

“We found some trash cans and plywood and made a low fortress out of it, and we hid behind that, because I remember learning back in high school: the best thing to do is to try and deter the shooter, deter anything that can try and get you in harm’s way,” told CNN’s Omar Jimenez.

Will Schatz speaks with CNN.

Will Schatz, another senior at Florida State University, was also inside the student union during the mass shooting. He told CNN there was chaos as people scrambled to escape.

While some stayed to seek shelter, he ran outside. After running several blocks, Schatz saw first responders arriving swiftly.

Former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell speaks with CNN.

Former Florida Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who lost her father to gun violence, criticized federal inaction in the wake of the campus shooting today.

“My heart is with the families in Tallahassee,” the Democrat told CNN’s Omar Jimenez. “What’s truly shameful here is that it’s happening under President Trump’s watch.

She described the crisis as both moral and political.

The former congresswoman also pointed to recent actions by Florida lawmakers, highlighting what she described as “extreme” measures passed by the Republican-controlled House.

A Florida State University event discussing strategies to build a safer campus and counter hate that was scheduled to take place today has been postponed following the deadly shooting at the school, organizers said.

The event, hosted by the College of Social Work, was going to feature Tallahassee community leaders to “engage in meaningful conversations, and brainstorm solutions to foster a safer and more respectful environment for everyone,” the college said on social media.

The event was planned in partnership with Maura’s Voice, an organization working to prevent hatred and violence against women and girls in Tallahassee and across the US. The organization was founded by Jeff and Margaret Binkley, whose daughter Maura Binkley was fatally shot when a gunman opened fire on her class at a yoga studio in 2018. The shooting killed the 21-year-old FSU student and Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, an FSU College of Medicine professor.

“The irony is so cruel,” Jeff Binkley told CNN on Thursday. He had traveled to Tallahassee for the symposium. Binkley told CNN that one of the shooting sites was in the building where the symposium was to be held.

The event was scheduled for 5 p.m. today. It’s unclear when the event will take place.

Tallahassee Police shared more information on the victims involved in the shooting at Florida State University today, saying two adult men were killed, five others wounded by gunfire and another person injured while trying to run away.

Police previously told CNN that two people died and five people were shot.

The suspect, identified as 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, is still hospitalized “with serious but non-life-threatening injuries,” Chief Lawrence Revell said in a statement.

A FSU classroom is barricaded during campus shooting.

Gabriel Santoro, a senior at Florida State University, was attending class in the school’s Bellamy Building when one of his classmates received a message about a possible shooter at the building directly next to them.

After a moment of hesitation, one of the students grabbed a desk to barricade the door, and Santoro and other classmates began adding more tables and chairs. Once the door was heavily blocked, Santoro learned some students in the classroom had seen other people sprinting past the building.

The FSU senior had noticed something strange even before his classmate received word about the shooting: The sound of sirens outside, which had been increasing over time.

Santoro’s account mirrors stories provided by other students today. Many learned of the shooting via the emergency alert sent by the university to their phones, but others had already spotted the commotion outside the windows of their classes and dorm rooms.

Some students described tearful phone calls to loved ones as they waited for help in classrooms, and others recalled the active shooter training they’ve received — many from a young age.

McKenzie Heeter, a FSU student who was on campus and saw the shooter during the event, speaks with CNN on Thursday.

A student who was on campus and saw the suspect said it didn’t seem like he was targeting anyone, but instead just started shooting.

McKenzie Heeter was leaving the Florida State University student union when she saw an orange Hummer parked nearby on a service road. She then saw a man next to the car holding “a larger gun,” when he “let off a shot” in her general direction, where some other people were also walking.

Heeter told CNN’s Kate Bolduan she then saw the man turn around and pull a handgun out of the car, turn toward the student union and shoot a woman wearing purple scrubs in the back.

She started running until she made it back to her apartment, around a mile away. For the first 20 seconds, she heard continuous gunfire.

“It was a good 20 seconds as I was running – it was just shot after shot after shot,” she said. Reflecting back on the moment, Heeter doesn’t remember him looking anxious or panicky, saying he was wearing a scowl but seemed calm.

Following the shooting, what lingers in her mind is the fate of the woman she saw being shot. “I really just want to find out about the woman in the purple scrubs and if she is OK.”

Dr. Brett Howard, a surgeon at Tallahassee Memorial Health Care, appears on CNN on Thursday.

Dr. Brett Howard, a surgeon at Tallahassee Memorial Health Care, said surgeries he did on patients after the Florida State University shooting “were all very successful.”

Howard declined to say whether the suspected shooter is one of the six patients being treated at the hospital in relation to the shooting.

Although some have serious injuries, the patients are “in good spirits and doing well.” They are stable and expected to make a full recovery, he said.

Howard said it’s “heartbreaking” to see a mass shooting happen at the university he graduated from.

Six patients are in fair condition after today’s shooting at Florida State University, a Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare spokesperson told CNN this evening.

Earlier, the spokesperson said one patient was in critical condition and five were in serious condition.

Remember: Police earlier said five people were shot, but a total of six were sent to the hospital. It’s not immediately clear if the sixth person is the suspect, but officials did say he was taken to the hospital.

Luke Farabaugh, a priest at a Catholic church across the street from Florida State University, speaks with CNN on Thursday.

Luke Farabaugh, a priest at a Catholic church across the street from Florida State University, helped terrified people who were seeking shelter from today’s shooting.

Farabaugh was attending a staff birthday party when he heard pops, which gave him a bad feeling, he told CNN’s Nick Valencia this evening. People started pouring into the Co-Cathedral of St. Thomas More, with “a fear that I had never seen before,” Farabaugh said.

He worried that a stray bullet would hit the church because it’s so close to campus, Farabaugh said.

What was meant to be a joyous time for the community as Easter approaches turned into tragedy, he said.

A mass is planned at the church tonight. Farabaugh said the community will be praying for students and families.

Fresh off an acceptance letter from her dream school – Florida State University – Kylie Byun and her parents were touring the Tallahassee campus along with dozens of other families when gunfire erupted today.

“We had actually just left the student union building maybe 5 minutes earlier,” the teen’s stepfather, Matt Gilchrist, wrote in a message to CNN. “We had gone into another building with our group tour, and sat down in an auditorium for a student panel discussion.”

Moments later, an FSU student “busted into the room and yelled, ‘Everyone! There is word of an active shooter on campus!’ and repeated that a couple of times,”” Byun told CNN.

“I definitely felt some degree of panic for not only me and my family’s safety, but for all the other students on campus.”

The auditorium was filled with about 80 to 100 teens and parents for “an admitted students tour,” the high school senior from Virginia said.

Soon, the tour’s facilitator confirmed there was an active shooter and announced the doors had been locked, Byun’s stepfather said.

For the next two hours, the visitors were “locked in a room with no windows, and no one was allowed in or out,” Byun said.

But the vast majority stayed calm.

The 18-year-old credits years of active shooter drills - starting in elementary school – for mentally preparing her for such a catastrophe. .

“I definitely think the drills seemed so pointless in the moment. But now, looking back at it and being there, I felt less … stressed out.”

The future biology major and aspiring medical school student said the way FSU managed the situation made her feel more secure attending college there this fall.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis shared a video message on X after the shooting on Thursday.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the person responsible for the shooting at Florida State University today need to be held accountable, saying “this killer must and will be brought to justice to the fullest extent of the law.”

He also said he and his wife are mourning the two people who died and “wish well” those recovering in the hospital. He also thanked law enforcement for their work, saying “there is no question that they saved lives.”

Holden Mamula was in his calculus class at Florida State University when he heard sirens in the distance and an active shooter alert sounded on campus.

Mamula said he and his classmates hid behind desks and turned off the lights. The political science and statistics major said he was in disbelief and sat on his knees, preparing to run. He texted his parents to let them know what was going on.

He said officers shortly arrived to the classroom and helped evacuate the students.

“I saw this police officer with an assault rifle, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is real,’” Mamula told CNN today. Another officer, seen on video Mamula took, helped usher students out of the building.

Mamula describes the shootings as traumatizing and awful.

Florida State University student Jayden D’Onofrio said not knowing whether his friends on campus were safe during the shooting today was “one of the most gutting feelings.”

He had been at his apartment complex about a block from the campus with a friend when they received a text that there was an active shooter. D’Onofrio ran to campus to help get one of his friends, who was in the library, to safety. She was shocked and shaking after the incident, D’Onofrio told CNN’s Jake Tapper this evening.

But for D’Onofrio, dealing with news of local mass shootings is nothing new.

He was in his 7th grade English class when he got a phone notification that 17 people had been killed in a shooting 15 minutes away at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.

D’Onofrio said he had school shooting drills every month growing up, “and this is just another chapter of that.”

People are escorted from the Florida State Campus in Tallahassee, Florida, following a shooting on Thursday.

At least two people were killed and several others were wounded after a gunman opened fire on the main Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee today, officials said.

It marks Florida’s sixth mass shooting so far this year, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.

Here’s what we learned at a news conference with officials:

President Donald Trump called the shooting today at Florida State University, which left two dead and at least five injured, “a shame,” but said he was unlikely to seek changes to the nation’s gun laws.

“As far as legislation is concerned, this has been going on for a long time. I have an obligation to protect the Second Amendment, I ran on the Second Amendment, among many other things, and I will always protect the Second Amendment,” he added.

During his first term in office, Trump suggested he’d be open to expanding background checks for purchasing firearms but later seemed to walk back those comments after meeting with then-National Rifle Association chief executive Wayne LaPierre at the White House.

In remarks from the campaign trail, Trump told supporters in October 2024 the Second Amendment “is under siege,” touting his endorsement from the NRA.

Florida A&M University will close its campus tomorrow following the deadly shooting at Florida State University.

“The FAMU community stands in solidarity with FSU during this difficult time,” the university said in a post on X.

Florida A&M University is about a mile southeast of Florida State University.

The suspected shooter’s ties to the local sheriff’s office have gutted the law enforcement community around Tallahassee, Leon County Sheriff Walter McNeil said at a news conference on today’s mass shooting at Florida State University.

Authorities have identified the suspect as the son of a Leon County sheriff’s deputy. Officers found a handgun that used to be her service weapon as they took him into custody, officials said.

The deputy has been with the sheriff’s office for over 18 years and has done “a tremendous job,” McNeil said.

The alleged shooter was also a longtime member of the youth advisory council at the sheriff’s office, Mcneil said.

Video shows moments of gunfire on Florida State University campus

00:16 - Source: CNN

Video shows moments of gunfire on Florida State University campus

00:16

Video taken in a parking lot appears to show people screaming and running to safety as gunshots rang out at Florida State University today.

At least one wounded person appeared to be on the ground across from the parking lot, video shows.