Amid the abandoned chemistry notes and other debris left behind after a deadly shooting at Florida State University are lingering questions about how the stepson of a beloved sheriff’s deputy tasked with school safety at a middle school became the accused gunman.
Political science student Phoenix Ikner was a long-standing member of a sheriff’s office youth advisory council and was steeped in the family-like culture of the agency. When officers rushed to the university’s student union on reports of gunfire, authorities say it was the 20-year-old who used his stepmother’s former service weapon to open fire, killing two men and wounding six others.
