TALLAHASSEE, FL – Two men were killed and six others were injured in a mass shooting that rocked the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee on April 17, which police say was carried out by the son of a local sheriff’s deputy.

The suspected gunman, identified as 20-year-old student Phoenix Ikner, opened fire near the student union around lunchtime as students ran for shelter and barricaded themselves in buildings around campus. Witnesses described panic and confusion as several shots rang out.

“Everyone started freaking out,” Sam Swartz told the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network. He was working on a project with a group in the basement of the student union when the students heard about 10 shots. They used trashcans and plywood to barricade themselves in a corner, hoping a shooter wouldn’t want to take the extra time to get to them, Swartz said.

Campus police responded to the scene, “almost immediately” and shot the suspect, who was taken into custody and is believed to have acted alone, Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell said. A former service weapon that belonged to Ikner’s mother was found at the scene.

The two men killed were not students at the university, officials said. Six people were treated for injuries, five of which were shot and one was injured while fleeing. Their conditions were all considered fair.

What happened at FSU

The gunman began firing near the student union building at about 11:50 a.m. on April 17, authorities said. Within minutes, a massive law enforcement response was heard around downtown Tallahassee as officers raced to the scene.

FSU sent a text to the campus community warning of an active shooter. “Continue to seek shelter and await further instructions. Lock and stay away from all doors and windows and be prepared to take additional protective measures,” the text said.

Campus police arrived “almost immediately” and shot the suspect when he didn’t respond to commands to surrender, Revell said.

The suspect “remains hospitalized with serious but non-life-threatening injuries,” Revell said on April 17. “As of this evening, the crime scenes have been processed.”

FSU SHOOTING TIMELINE: See how the mass shooting unfolded

FSU students describe chaos, fear during shooting

Will Schatz, an FSU senior, was in the Strozier Library on campus about noon with friends when he saw people running. He ran with them, exiting the back of the library at West Call Street and Dewey Street.

“When I got out, I heard seven to eight gunshots. I’m not sure if that was the shooter shooting or if the cops shot the shooter,” Schatz told the Tallahassee Democrat.

He called his mother right after he got out of the library to tell her he was OK and what happened. Since then, he said he saw four students loaded into ambulances and taken away.

Swartz, the student who hid in the student union basement, and Sean Gulledg described relying on knowledge active shooter training when they set up their makeshift barricade. It took about 10 minutes for them to be found by law enforcement, but it felt a lot longer, Gulledg said.

WITNESS ACCOUNTS: Students on campus share experience of hearing gunshots, seeing injured students

“I remember learning to do the best you can to make them take time because they don’t want to do anything that takes time, they’re just trying to get as many people,” Swartz said.

Gulledg, a resident assistant, said they train for these situations, but never thought they’d have to use them. “I trusted the training,” he said.

FSU junior Angel Dejesus said his class hid in a smaller room within the classroom he was in with the doors locked at the College of Business building adjacent to the student union.

Dejesus said he was studying for a final exam that he had in an hour trying to drown out the chaos, but it got “much more serious” when a student who lived through the Parkland shooting entered the room.

“He was like, ‘Man, I never thought this would happen again,’“ Dejesus said.

Handgun belonged to suspect’s mother, a deputy

Authorities said Ikner used a handgun that was formerly his mother’s service weapon. When she received a new weapon to use in work duties, the old one became a “personal handgun,” Revell said.

A shotgun was also found, but it wasn’t immediately clear if it was also used, officials said.

Ikner’s mother was a longtime deputy with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office and had worked there for 18 years, said Sheriff Walt McNeil. Ikner had also been a member of the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Youth Advisory Council, McNeil said.

“He has been steeped in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family, engaged in a number of training programs that we have,” the sheriff said. “So it’s not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons.”

Who is Phoenix Ikner? Suspect espoused radical ideas

The news that Ikner was the suspected gunman horrified people who knew him, but they said they weren’t shocked given things he had said publicly.

“I got into arguments with him in class over how gross the things he said were,” Lucas Luzietti, a politics student who shared a class with Ikner at Tallahassee Community College before he transferred, told USA TODAY.

According to the Florida native, Ikner touted right wing conspiracy theories and hateful ideas. Few students, if any, were close to Ikner, although he spoke with the professor regularly after class, Luzietti told USA TODAY. 

“I remember thinking this man should not have access to firearms,” Luzietti said. But, “what are you supposed to do? His mother was a cop and Florida doesn’t have very strong red flag laws.”

READ MORE: Suspected Florida shooter had a history of espousing radical ideas. What did he say?

Ikner was quoted in an FSView/Florida Flambeau this January reacting to a Tallahassee Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) march on campus. “These people are usually pretty entertaining, usually not for good reasons,” said Ikner, a political science major. “I think it’s a little too late, (Trump is) already going to be inaugurated on Jan. 20 and there’s not really much you can do unless you outright revolt, and I don’t think anyone wants that.” 

Contributing: Michael Loria, Christopher Cann