Phoenix Ikner, who killed two people and injured six others at Florida State University in Tallahassee, joked about ‘head trauma’ and ‘power’ a night before the shooting, the Miami Herald reported exclusively, citing the 20-year-old’s chat logs with college athletes. The revelation comes a day after Ikner opened fire on the FSU campus.
The publication further added that Ikner spoke about taking something to help him ‘sleep like a champ’. The report included screenshots of his messages.
Phoenix Iker, son of a local sheriff’s deputy, had access to his mother’s guns and also attended training sessions, authorities had confirmed on Wednesday. He was taken into custody after being shot and injured by university police. The 20-year-old is expected to recover.
The Miami Herald added that Ikner laughed about taking hits to the head during a night before the shooting. “Twice the head trauma, twice the power,” he wrote in messages, further adding, “I’m evolving.”
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The FSU shooter’s former classmates told The Herald that he was ‘intelligent’, but ‘off’. He also drew ‘weird’ drawings in his notebooks and was possibly bullied in high school.
“He definitely wasn’t that quiet kid that was sitting in the back of the class. He was friendly to an extent, of course. He would just make some comments being either sexist because he did not like taking orders from a female — being told what to do,” one person, who was at Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps with Iker, told the media outlet.
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Police have not disclosed any potential motive in the shooting, nor there is a concrete link between the suspect and the victims.
Iker was involved in a complex custody battle between his parents when he was younger, and also asked a Leon County circuit court for a legal name change.
“This court found him to be a mentally, emotionally, and physically mature young adult, who is very articulate, quite intelligent, very well spoken, and very polite,” administrative magistrate James Banks wrote in his approval of the legal switch from Ikner’s birth name, which was Christian Gunnar Eriksen.
