Short summary
Here is a one-paragraph summary of the key details from the text, without unnecessary introductory phrases and in consistent language:
On April 17th, a gunman opened fire on the main campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee, shooting multiple individuals near the Student Union building. FSU police responded immediately, engaged, neutralized and apprehended the shooter. Two victims are deceased and five individuals have been transported to a local hospital with gunshot wounds. The shooter, a 20-year-old FSU student named Phoenix Eichner who is the son of a Leon County Sheriff deputy, has also been transported to a hospital. All FSU athletic events in Tallahassee are canceled through Sunday, and classes have been canceled through Friday. Counseling and support services are available for students, faculty, and staff. Law enforcement agencies, including the Tallahassee Police Department, Leon County Sheriff’s Office, and FBI, are leading the investigation into this tragic incident.
Main body
April 18th essential employees should check with their supervisors for further reporting instructions. All FSU athletic events in Tallahassee are canceled through Sunday at approximately 11: 50 a. m. Thursday, April 17th, a gunman opened fire on the main campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee, shooting multiple individuals in the vicinity of the Student Union building. FSU police responded immediately, engaged, neutralized and apprehended the shooter. Two victims of deceased are deceased and five individuals have been transported to a local hospital with gunshot wounds. The shooter has also been transported to a local hospital. The two deceased are not students. The shooter is believed to be a current FSU student. I do not have additional information on the shooter’s identity at this time. Students who need assistance can go to the Donnell Tucker Center, where the university is providing counseling, health care, and other support services. Family members are also able to go to the Tucker Center for assistance. Students, faculty, and staff are asked to call their loved ones as soon as possible to update them on their status. The student union and the surrounding area is still considered an active crime scene. Individuals should avoid the area. Students should not return to the Student Union to retrieve personal property at this time. Students may return to their residence halls, but they should otherwise stay indoors on main campus to allow first responders and university staff to do their jobs and respond to those needing assistance. Students may depart campus for the weekend. All classes have been canceled through Friday. Before I turn this over to Chief Revel, I want to thank all the brave men and women of the FSU PD for responding immediately to the scene. I also want to thank the responding agencies who have provided assistance to FSU today big time, including the Tallahassee Police Department, the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, the Florida Highway Patrol. Leon County Emergency Medical Services, FDLE, and all other responding agencies today. We really appreciate your support. That’s all the information I have at this time. We’ll have additional update for you later today. Good afternoon.
I am Chief Revel with the Tallahassee Police Department. As the shooting occurred today, our officers, as well as every single other officer in this city and county, responded immediately to this scene. Once on scene and once we began working through what was occurring and what we were working on, in consultation with FSU, Towson Police Department was asked to take lead on this. So we will be the lead for this investigation in both the officer-involved shooting portion of this as well as the homicide portion of this. I will come up after the last speaker and entertain just a few questions. But needless to say, we have multiple crime scenes. This is a very large area we’re covering. We have thousands, hundreds of thousands or hundreds or thousands of witnesses. And again, this is an active ongoing investigation. So the information that we will be allowed to release right now may be fairly limited. I’ll answer what I can at that time. But I will assure you that as soon as we can, any information that becomes available, we will make that available to you. One of the things in the process, and again, understand that this is an ongoing active investigation. So things are happening as we are standing here and as we are speaking. We have identified the shooter, obviously. He’s at the hospital. So with more on that, I’m going to allow the sheriff to come up and speak on that portion of it.
Thank you, Chief. As Chief Roble indicated, I’m Walt McNeil, Linn County Sheriff. First and foremost, let me express our gratitude to the responding law enforcement agencies in this community. Our citizens should feel some degree of comfort knowing that your law enforcement agencies are going to respond and do exactly what we did in this case, that is bring the offender to justice, and to make sure that we do what we can to make sure we lock him or her up. Let me say to you, this is obviously a heinous crime. Our deepest condolences go out to the FSU family, the families of the students who are here, and we understand that you all have been devastated because of this person’s actions. The question as it relates to who is the shooter, the shooter is 20-year-old Phoenix Eichner, and he’s the son of a Leon County Sheriff deputy. Our deputy, Deputy Eichner, has been with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office for over 18 years. She has a tremendous job that she’s done. Her service to this community has been exceptional. Unfortunately, her son had access to one of her weapons, and that was one of the weapons that was found at the scene. And we will continue that investigation into how that weapon was used and what other weapons perhaps he may have had access to. The alleged shooter was also a long-standing member of the Landon County Sheriff’s Office Citizen Advisory or Youth Advisory Council. So he has been steep in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office family, engaged in a number of training programs that we have. So it’s not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons. This event is tragic in more ways than you people in the audience could ever phantom from a law enforcement perspective. But I will tell you this. We will make sure that we do everything we can to prosecute and make sure that we send a message to folks that this will never be tolerated here in Leon County, and I dare say across this state and across this nation. Thank you. Let me bring up the FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Hubert Reynolds.
Good afternoon. My name is Hubert Reynolds and I’m the Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Jacksonville field office. I want to echo those standing with me-what a horrific crime this is-and we stand with you fully. We have an office here in Tallahassee and we are fully engaged with providing any resources that we can bring to bear to help with this investigation moving forward. We’ve established a digital tips media line where you can upload photos, videos prior to and during the incident, if you’re there from social media, please upload all of that. I will give you now the website address. You can upload any tips to www. fbi. gov/ FSU shooting. Again, that’s www. fbi. gov/ FSU shooting. I want to assure you that we are going to bring every available resource to be able to help the community and the local people here. Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Richard McCullough, Rick McCullough, president of Florida State University. This is a tragic day for Florida State University. We’re absolutely heartbroken by the violence that occurred on our campus earlier today. Two have died. Five other innocents are being treated for their injuries. We’re working to support the victims, their families, and everyone affected by this traumatic event. I just returned from the hospital. The First Lady and I met some of her students who were the victims. Our hearts go out to our students and the victims of this terrible tragedy. I have to say that our law enforcement, our FSU police officers, absolute heroes in this regard. The call went out, someone called it in, and immediately they responded to the scene and immediately neutralized the suspect and prevented this from being a bigger tragedy. I want to thank them so much for what they do to try to keep our students safe. I want to thank all the law enforcement partners, FSU Police, Tallahassee Police, Leon County Sheriff’s Department of Florida, Highway Patrol, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and all other responding agencies for their rapid and courageous response. I want to thank everybody that came out to visit with the students and help us and to be here today for this press conference, and I appreciate so much the support that you’re all providing to our university and to our students. We’re fully cooperating with the investigation and we defer to law enforcement as they continue their work. I’d also like to thank all the healthcare providers at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. They’re treating and providing outstanding care to our victims. Right now, our top top priority is safety and well-being for all the people and our campus. As it was said, classes are canceled. The main campus today and tomorrow, and all FSU athletics events in Tallahassee are canceled through Sunday. We also want to tell you that counseling and psychological services are available to students, faculty, and staff. And anyone that needs that should call 850-644-2003. We’re also providing support for faculty and staff through our Employee Assistance Program. And so if you need any help, please, please reach out. We’ll continue to communicate with the campus community as we know more. This is a deeply emotional time, but we’re all here to support each other. We’re going to do everything we can to support our community. We’re a strong and united community. We’re family. And so we’ll take care of all of you. And we’ll get through this together. Thank you.
All right. At this time, we will take a few questions. Let me just reiterate, this was a massive response, a massive response of law enforcement personnel. Our federal, state, local partners have continued to build relationships that long preceded this event. And that came into great play today in the seamless way that we all came together to work these events. But I know you’ll have some specific questions. I will tell you right now we are not going to talk about the victims other than the fact that there are six of them, two additional deceased, and then the suspects, so nine total persons. Nine total persons. Yes, sir. The suspect invoked his rights not to speak to us.
Right.
No, that’s a good question. This weapon was a weapon that the deputy previously used. A lot of times, many agencies, mine included, when we transition to a new handgun, the officers are allowed to purchase the handgun they used prior. And correct me if I’m wrong, Sheriff, but I believe that’s the case here. This was a handgun that the deputy used prior to them transitioning to a new handgun, and so it was her personal handgun.
Is she put on leave?
The Sheriff would have to speak to that.
We will do a thorough investigation to look at all aspects of it. There’s no calls right now that we are aware of that require her to be placed on any kind of suspension or otherwise. Yes, ma’am.
We’ve been hearing stuff that it was a deputy or a school resource officer. Is that true?
That is correct.
Chief, who was injured, was killed, or any of those members of law enforcement?
I’m sorry?
No, they were not.
They were not. Yes, sir. No, they challenged him and ended up shooting. He did not comply with commands and was shot. I do not believe he fired at officers. I do not have that detail. I’m sorry. We’re not releasing any of the victim information at this time. We were not. We will get you that information. I don’t have that currently. I assume that would be a question that was asked, but I mean, it was almost immediately. At FSU, obviously, this is their campus, and they patrol it very well. So they were on scene almost immediately, engaged almost immediately. And then everyone else, again, was a massive, very quick response.
I know that you said that the two deceased were not students. Do we know of those five that were injured or any of them students?
Again, we’re not releasing any information on the victims at this point. I’m sorry. It was a handgun. I don’t know what type of handgun that was. It was probably a 40. I don’t know.
We do know that he had a shotgun with him.
We have not confirmed anyone was shot with a shotgun at this point. But again, that could change. Again, there are hundreds and hundreds of witnesses. Um, and as we piece all of this back together, information will come to light that we may not have at this point. So I do not, I do not believe so at this point.
I’m sorry.
Say again. We will work with the state attorney’s office, which we always do. Um, and pulling together all the information, all the investigative evidence from this case, and in collaboration with State Attorney Campbell, we will make that determination. Obviously, after the case is over, we will certainly; it all becomes available at that point. But as to what we can and will release at that point, like I said before, we’re very open, transparent on these things. Again, the officers did an incredible job. But again, some of this is very horrific. This is a horrific incident. And so, um, we will again collaborate with the state attorney’s office and determine which of that evidence could be released or will not be released. But again, I’ll let you know that as soon as we make that determination. So thank you all very much. Appreciate you being here and just let me reiterate what’s already been said. The collaboration between all of the agencies, the federal, the state, the local; All of our first responders, our EMS personnel, our fire department, again, just a massive response. Immediate treatment to the victims that were there, the transport of them. Again, it was a very seamless, seamless response to this tragedy. And that goes to the training that we all do repeatedly, individually as agencies and together. The incident command came together very, very quickly. And again, I could not be more proud of the response and more horrified at the act. So thank you very much.
Sure.
Total number of nine. That includes the suspect. So there are six victims that are injured, two victims that are dead and one suspect. And let me just reiterate this because I’m not sure we said this. We have no reason to believe at this point that he did not act alone. So there is no further threat to our community at this point. So thank you very much.
Hey Anthony, can you tell editors to grab the signs from the question about the weapon?
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ 1: What Happened During the Florida State University Shooting?
Keywords: Florida State University shooting, Tallahassee campus safety, FSU Student Union incident
On April 17, 2024, a gunman opened fire near the FSU Student Union building, resulting in 2 fatalities and 5 injuries. The shooter, identified as Phoenix Eichner (20), was neutralized by FSU police and transported to a local hospital. Key details:
- Location: Main campus of Florida State University, Tallahassee.
- Law Enforcement Response: FSU PD, Tallahassee Police, Leon County Sheriff’s Office, and FBI collaborated to secure the scene.
- Weapon Used: Firearm linked to a Leon County Sheriff’s deputy (shooter’s mother).
Sub-Question: Was the FSU shooter acting alone?Investigators confirm no further threats to the community; the suspect acted alone.
FAQ 2: What Resources Are Available for FSU Students & Families?
Keywords: FSU shooting victims, Donnell Tucker Center counseling, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital updates
Immediate Support Channels:
- Counseling Services: Students/faculty can access trauma support at the Donnell Tucker Center (call 850-644-2003).
- Hospitalized Victims: Five injured individuals are under care at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital.
- Family Assistance: Relatives of victims should report to the Tucker Center for updates.
Campus Closures:
- Classes Canceled: All FSU courses suspended through April 19.
- Athletics Events: Tallahassee-based games canceled through April 21.
Sub-Question: When can students retrieve belongings from the FSU Student Union?The area remains an active crime scene; updates will be shared via FSU Emergency Alerts.
FAQ 3: How Did Law Enforcement Respond to the FSU Shooting?
Keywords: Leon County Sheriff’s Office investigation, FSU police response, FBI Tallahassee shooting tips
Key Actions Taken:
- Rapid Neutralization: FSU PD engaged the shooter within minutes, preventing further casualties.
- Multi-Agency Coordination: FBI’s Jacksonville Field Office established a digital tip line (www.fbi.gov/FSUshooting) for photo/video submissions.
- Weapon Investigation: Authorities are probing how the shooter accessed a Leon County Sheriff’s deputy’s firearm.
Sub-Question: Will the deputy face consequences?The Leon County Sheriff’s Office stated the deputy is not suspended pending a full investigation.
