For one Florida educator, Thursday’s tragedy at Florida State University wasn’t just another headline—it was personal. Very personal.
Brittany Sinitch, who studied at FSU and survived the Parkland school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, has endured two of the most devastating incidents of gun violence in Florida during her lifetime.
“In 2014, I was a student at Florida State University,” she recalled in an Instagram post. “I had just gotten home from the library and class when I began receiving messages from friends checking in—some sharing that they were hiding behind bookshelves as a shooting unfolded on campus.”
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Four years later, “in 2018, I was a first-year teacher at my alma mater, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, when a gunman entered the building where I was teaching and opened fire, taking the lives of 17 individuals and physically injuring 17 others—forever impacting the entire community.”
Former FSU alumni mourns amid new shooting
But even a decade after the first shooting she experienced, nothing had changed. Now, another horror has struck—this time back at Florida State University—where 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, the son of a Leon County sheriff’s deputy, allegedly shot and killed two people and injured six others using his mother’s service handgun.
The Leon County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed that Ikner acted alone. He was shot and injured by police and is now hospitalised.
“Today, there’s breaking news of yet another shooting, this time back at Florida State University, and my heart is shattered,” she said. “I’m numb, heartbroken, and deeply angry. And I can’t help but ask: how? How is this still happening?”
Brittany’s voice echoes the frustration of countless Americans affected directly or indirectly by gun violence. “It feels like betrayal. It feels like heartbreak. It feels exactly like it did the first time we lived through it.”
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“It’s confusing, because we want change more than anything. Shouldn’t it be easy to stand up to this type of violence? We don’t want anyone else to ever have to endure this pain.”
Notably, Ikner had previously served on the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Youth Advisory Council.
Jacob West, a peer from that council, told The New York Times, “To hear what had happened was absolutely heartbreaking.”
