Sheriff Vows to Prosecute F.S.U. Gunman, Who Is Identified as a Deputy’s Son

Here’s what to know:

• Investigators identified the attacker as Phoenix Ikner. Chief Lawrence E. Revell of the Tallahassee Police Department said the gunman appeared to have been acting alone. He was armed with a handgun that had once been his mother’s service weapon and a shotgun when he was taken into custody, Chief Revell said. But the chief added that it was unclear whether the shotgun had been used in the attack.

• Gunshots were reported at the student union building shortly before noon, and the university soon issued a shelter-in-place alert. The alert was lifted at 3:20 p.m., but students were advised to avoid the student union and eight other buildings, which the university said were “still an active crime scene.”

• The gunfire sent students and staff seeking cover. A professor, Chris Coutts, said he was “baffled” as he walked to his car after having sheltered in place. “This is the second one since I’ve been here,” he said, referring to a 2014 shooting in which a gunman wounded three people in the library.

• Officers began evacuating academic buildings soon after the shelter-in-place alert went out. Local and state police officers were on campus escorting students from the buildings near the student union.

• University officials canceled all classes, events and business operations for the rest of the week. All athletic events are canceled through the weekend. The last day of classes is next Friday.

Adeel Hassan and Amanda Holpuch contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

So was the fear for several students who sheltered in place during Thursday’s deadly shooting at Florida State University and shared a traumatizing coincidence: they had endured the Parkland, Fla., school massacre in 2018.

Joshua Gallagher, a law student at Florida State who went to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, wrote on social media on Thursday that he never thought that gun violence would hit close to home again.

“Then I’m in the FSU Law Library,” where he heard an alarm: “active shooter on campus,” Mr. Gallagher wrote on X. “No matter your politics, we need to meet — and something has to change.”

Ilana Badiner, 21, who is graduating from Florida State in two weeks, said in an interview that she huddled in the student union basement with about 30 people during the shooting. In 2018, she was a student at a school adjacent to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. She said her school had been placed on lockdown for four hours.

“It was the same situation today, where people were just on the phones calling everybody and there were people crying,” she said. “It’s terrible that this keeps happening.”

In Parkland, 17 people were killed when a gunman, armed with a semiautomatic rifle and 300 rounds of ammunition, went on a rampage that lasted just under six minutes in a freshman building at the high school. Fourteen of them were students and three were faculty members. Another 17 people were injured in the shooting, one of the deadliest in American history, which fueled continuing calls for tougher gun control measures.

Fred Guttenberg, a vocal critic of existing gun laws who lost his 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, in the Parkland massacre, condemned what he said had been a lack of progress to prevent more shootings.

“America is broken,” Mr. Guttenberg wrote on social media on Thursday, pointing out that many of his daughter’s friends who survived the Parkland shooting were now seniors at Florida State. “As a father, all I ever wanted after the Parkland shooting was to help our children be safe. Sadly, because of the many people who refuse to do the right things about reducing gun violence, I am not surprised by what happened today.”

Jaclyn Corin and David Hogg, co-founders of March for Our Lives, a group led by students who survived the Parkland massacre, echoed Mr. Guttenberg’s criticism in a statement.

“No student should have to live in fear that their campus or classroom could be the scene of the next massacre or be forced to cower behind desks wishing they’d hugged their loved ones tighter before leaving for class,” they said. “We felt that pit in our stomachs years ago when we watched classmates gunned down.”

“We’re heartbroken and outraged that more young people had to endure that trauma today — including fellow Parkland survivors who are now at FSU and have been forced to relive our shared nightmare,” the statement said.

The shooting began at around 11:50 a.m. near the student union building in Tallahassee, Fla., where the 20-year student opened fire with a handgun, according to law enforcement officials who spoke at an afternoon news conference. Two people were killed and six others were injured before responding officers shot and wounded the gunman.

Sheriff McNeil identified the gunman as Phoenix Ikner, 20, the son of a female sheriff’s deputy. The handgun had been his mother’s service weapon, which she had bought for personal use, he said.

The sheriff said that the gunman was a “longstanding member” of the department’s youth advisory council and had taken part in a number of training programs.

Investigators provided few details about the victims, except to say that neither of those killed were students. At least some of the injured were students: Richard McCullough, the university president, said he visited them in the hospital.

“We are absolutely heartbroken,” Dr. McCullough said.

Investigators said that the suspect was also armed with a shotgun, adding it was unclear whether he had used it in the attack. The attacker was believed to have acted alone, they said.

Officers from the university’s police department who responded to the scene shot and wounded the suspect after he refused to comply with their demands, officials said at the news conference.

Once in police custody, the suspect “invoked his right not to speak to us,” said Chief Lawrence E. Revell of the Tallahassee Police Department.

The gunman had reloaded once before he was killed by the police outside the library building, the authorities said at the time.

The gunman had believed the government was watching him, and that he had detailed his fears in a written journal and videos, officials said at the time. He had no criminal record with the Tallahassee Police Department or the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, the authorities said in 2014.

The police chief at the time, Michael DeLeo, credited security measures that allowed only students and staff to enter the library with preventing more bloodshed. The gunman had been carrying a .38-caliber handgun and additional ammunition in his pockets, but he left the library after he was unable to make it past the security barriers, Chief DeLeo said then.

One of the students who was injured, Farhan Ahmed, was left paralyzed after the shooting, according to WTXL, a TV station in Tallahassee. In 2019, Florida State University and Mr. Ahmed reached a $1 million settlement, The Tallahassee Democrat reported.

“He did not comply with commands and was shot,” Chief Revell said.

“Unfortunately, he had access to one of her weapons,” the sheriff said.

Six people have been hospitalized with injuries, the authorities said.

“All of a sudden, I hear boom, boom, boom,” Mr. Castillo said. “My ears started ringing; I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t think it would happen here.”

Mr. Castillo sheltered in place until the police evacuated the building.

Chris Coutts, 51, a professor of urban planning at the school, said he was “baffled” by what had happened. “This is the second one since I’ve been here,” he said as he walked to his car after having sheltered in place. He was referring to a 2014 shooting in which a gunman wounded three people in the university library.