TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Two folks had been killed and 6 others had been injured when a gunman opened hearth at Florida State College, sending college students fleeing from the scholar union and placing the Tallahassee, Florida, campus below lockdown.
Authorities have recognized the shooter as Phoenix Ikner, a 20-year-old Florida State pupil who’s the son of a sheriff’s deputy. He started firing along with his mom’s former service weapon earlier than he was shot and wounded by officers when he refused to adjust to instructions, investigators stated.
College students wait to retrieve their private objects from the Florida State Pupil Union constructing, Tallahassee, Fla., Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photograph/Gary McCullough)
Authorities haven’t but revealed a motive for the taking pictures, which started round lunchtime Thursday simply outdoors the scholar union.
Officers have additionally not recognized the victims who died. A member of the family stated that college worker Robert Morales was a type of who had been killed. Attorneys for the household of the second sufferer recognized him as Tiru Chabba, a meals service vendor government. Here’s what we find out about Morales and Chabba.
Robert Morales
Robert Morales was a college eating coordinator who had labored at Florida State since 2015, in accordance with his LinkedIn profile.
“Today we lost my younger Brother, he was one of the victims killed at FSU,” Ricardo Morales Jr. posted on social media late Thursday. “He loved his job at FSU and his beautiful Wife and Daughter. I’m glad you were in my life.”
Morales had studied criminology on the college within the early Nineties, in accordance with the LinkedIn profile.
The profile additionally stated he was CEO of Black Bean Meals Group, although state data present that the enterprise was dissolved a decade in the past.
Morales developed modern menus, particularly Cuban meals, and was a former assistant soccer coach at close by Leon Excessive Faculty, Kyle Clark, a senior vice chairman at FSU, stated Friday afternoon at a vigil.
“He didn’t just do a job. He lived the job,” Clark stated. “He was a stellar person.”
The Morales brothers’ father, Ricardo Morales, was a Cuban exile turned CIA operative in South Florida with the nickname “Monkey.” Ricardo Morales Jr. describes his father’s work as a contract agent for the CIA within the forthcoming guide, “Monkey Morales: The True Story of a Mythic Cuban Exile, Assassin, CIA Operative, FBI Informant, Smuggler, and Dad,” which is predicted to be revealed later this 12 months.
“Dubbed ‘The Monkey’ for his disruptive and unpredictable escapades, Morales grabbed headlines for decades as tales of his bombings, arrests, assassination attempts (both those he executed and those he suffered), and testimony constructed a real-life spy adventure unlike anything brought to page or screen,” reads promotional materials from writer Simon & Schuster.
The elder Morales was fatally shot in a bar brawl in 1982 on the age of 43.
Tiru Chabba
This undated photograph supplied by the Strom Regulation Agency on Friday, April 18, 2025, exhibits Tiru Chaba, one of many folks fatally shot on Florida State College campus. (Strom Regulation Agency through AP)
Tiru Chabba was working for meals service vendor Aramark when he was killed on the Florida State campus, stated Michael Wukela, a spokesperson for attorneys employed by the household.
A LinkedIn profile listed Chabba as a regional vice chairman of Aramark Collegiate Hospitality who had labored for the corporate for greater than twenty years. The 45-year-old Greenville, South Carolina, resident was a married father of two kids who had earned an MBA from The Citadel in South Carolina.
“Tiru Chabba’s family is going through the unimaginable now,” Bakari Sellers, one of many attorneys employed by the household, stated in an announcement. “Instead of hiding Easter eggs and visiting with friends and family, they’re living a nightmare where this loving father and devoted husband was stolen from them in an act of senseless and preventable violence.”
Initially Printed: April 18, 2025 at 6:13 PM EDT
