Florida State University shooting: Suspect arrested, 2 dead, 6 injured: Firefighters were called to the house this week. But we begin tonight with breaking news in another mass shooting in this country, this time at Florida State University in Tallahassee.
Two people are now dead. We know that they are not students. Six others injured. Investigators have not revealed any other details about those victims.
“More gun insanity in this country,” authorities say. The shooter is in custody – 20-year-old Phoenix Eichner, a student at the university. He is also hospitalized. Police say he used a gun belonging to his mother, who is a sheriff’s deputy. They say he had access to her weapons.
Investigators say he opened fire near the student union. When officers arrived, they immediately found the gunman. When he refused to comply, he was shot.
“The shots rang out and we were like, is that construction going on or what? What was happening? And I remember looking outside and hearing five more shots go off. I see this group of girls crying, really upset. Walking back from the student union told me they heard gunshots and they just ran and came back to their apartment, where I was walking to accounts of so many young people.”
Investigators say yes, the son of a sheriff’s deputy started shooting at the student union just before noon. Police identifying the alleged shooter as 20-year-old Phoenix Eichner, a current FSU student and the son of a current Leon County sheriff’s deputy.
Police rushing to the scene, they say they confronted the shooter and shot him when they say he refused their commands. You can sort of make out the bottom of his shoe or boot in the ambulance and police putting him in shackles.
We’re told he suffered non-life threatening injuries after being shot by police. But when cops got to campus, students – some of them started running out of the buildings. Some described a threat alarm going off. Some, of course, were crying, using backpacks as shields in school.
The accused shooter, described as a long-standing member of the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Youth Advisory Council and participated in training programs. Again, his mom – a sheriff’s deputy – has been with the sheriff’s office for 18 years.
Investigators say her training weapon was found at the shooting scene. “Unfortunately, her son had access to one of her weapons, and that was one of the weapons that was found at the scene.”
The alleged shooter was also a long-standing member of the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Citizen Advisory or Youth Advisory Council, so he has been steeped in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family, engaged in a number of training programs that we have so far.
In 2025, there have been 81 mass shootings as of April 17th, including this latest one in Florida. By the way, this is Florida’s sixth mass shooting so far this year.
Source: raialkhalij + aljazeera