The suspected gunman in an attack at Florida State University that killed two and injured six had a troubling fascination with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, according to screenshots of his online history captured by the Anti-Defamation League and shared with USA TODAY on Friday.
Suspect Phoenix Ikner used a drawing of Hitler with the word “Nein” in a thought bubble next to the infamous dictator as a profile photo for an online gaming account, analysts at the anti-hate group found. For the name of another account, the 20-year-old used “Schutzstaffel,” the name of the ruthless “SS” paramilitary group that started out as Hitler’s personal bodyguard, grew into death squads and ran the concentration camps where millions of Jews were murdered.
“Neither one means anything in particular but they’re part of the broader story,” Carla Hill, a senior director of investigative research at the anti-hate group’s Center on Extremism, said of Ikner’s apparent fascination with Nazis. “It gives us a little more insight into what he’s thinking about and curious about.”
The new revelations come just a day after the shooting that began when a gunman opened fire near the university’s student union at approximately 11:50 a.m., striking multiple people and sending students fleeing for cover.
Leon County Sheriff Walter A. McNeil said Ikner used a gun that belonged to his stepmother, a veteran Leon County sheriff deputy. Ikner was injured in the shooting and is expected to spend significant time in the hospital, according to Tallahassee Police Department Chief Lawrence Revell.
In the aftermath of the shooting on Thursday, people who knew Ikner said he had a history of espousing radical conspiracy theories and hateful ideas. The president of a student politics club said Ikner “espoused so much white supremacist rhetoric” that they booted him from the group.
What do the latest records show?
The new records provided by the ADL show that the politics student adopted the terminology and imagery of white supremacists from Nazi Germany and the U.S.
Hill said a team of about 20 researchers at the anti-hate group combed through Ikner’s activity after he was named by police as the suspected shooter. The research director said the group’s investigators routinely analyze suspected mass shooters’ online activities, aiming to uncover any extremist ideological leanings before online accounts are wiped.
Other troubling signs in the FSU case, according to the ADL, include internet searches of the terms “scientific racism” and “national confederate flag.” The ADL collected the screenshots showing the searches from Ikner’s frequent livestreams.
Another account linked to Ikner used the symbol for Patriot Front, the leading White nationalist group in the U.S. that formed in the aftermath of the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left a person dead, according to Hill.
The account bearing the group’s logo was named “Rebel,” records show. Hill said the group is the largest and most active White supremacist group in America today.
“It’s just concerning,” said Hill. “What we’re seeing – if in fact this individual has extremist views and it seems at the very least he was exposed to extremism – is the continued crossover between extremism and the glorification of violence that eventually leads to violence.”
Other mass shooter suspects adopted similar rhetoric
Fascination with extremist figures is by no means uncommon in certain circles. Many suspected and confirmed mass shooters show patterns of adopting White supremacist imagery online.
The gunman behind a shooting in January at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee, that left one student dead before the 17-year-old turned the gun on himself, repeated Nazi, antisemitic screeds in his writings, according to the ADL. He used “88,” a White supremacist code meaning Heil Hitler, in screen names.
ADL researchers also found that the shooter behind an attack in December at a Madison, Wisconsin, high school that left two people dead and six wounded reposted White supremacist and antisemitic memes. The teen died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound after the attack.
The 15-year-old’s account bio used the phrase “‘Totally normal day,’” wording often used by racist users to signify the abbreviation “TND,” with T for “total,” N for a racist slur and D for “death,” the ADL researchers wrote in the report.
What did Ikner say in class?
Revelations around Ikner’s online profiles come after fellow students said he espoused extremist ideas in class.
“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, told USA TODAY.
According to the Florida native, Ikner touted right wing conspiracy theories and hateful ideas. Among them was a theory that President Joe Biden illegally came into office, “Rosa Parks was in the wrong” and Black people were ruining his neighborhood.
“I remember thinking this man should not have access to firearms,” Luzietti told USA TODAY. But, “what are you supposed to do?”
Reid Seybold, a former Tallahassee State College student who transferred to Florida State at the same time as Ikner, recalled how they crossed paths at their old school, according to NBC News.
Seybold said they belonged to a “political round table” club where the group eventually asked Ikner to leave over the hateful things he said.
“Basically our only rule was no Nazis — colloquially speaking — and he espoused so much white supremacist rhetoric, and far-right rhetoric as well, to the point where we had to exercise that rule,” Seybold said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Suspected FSU shooter’s web trail shows fascination with Nazis, Hitler
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