New information present suspected FSU shooter had troubling fascination with hate teams

The suspected gunman in an assault at Florida State College that killed two and injured six had a troubling fascination with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, in response to screenshots of his on-line historical past captured by the Anti-Defamation League and shared with USA TODAY on Friday.

Suspect Phoenix Ikner used a drawing of Hitler with the phrase “Nein” in a thought bubble subsequent to the notorious dictator as a profile picture for an internet gaming account, analysts on the anti-hate group discovered. For the title of one other account, the 20-year-old used “Schutzstaffel,” the title of the ruthless “SS” paramilitary group that started off as Hitler’s private bodyguard, grew into loss of life squads and ran the focus camps the place thousands and thousands of Jews have been murdered.

“Neither one means something particularly however they’re a part of the broader story,” Carla Hill, a senior director of investigative analysis on the anti-hate group’s Middle on Extremism, stated of Ikner’s obvious fascination with Nazis. “It provides us a bit extra perception into what he’s serious about and interested by.”

The brand new revelations come only a day after the capturing that started when a gunman opened hearth close to the college’s scholar union at roughly 11:50 a.m., hanging a number of individuals and sending college students fleeing for canopy.

Leon County Sheriff Walter A. McNeil stated Ikner used a gun that belonged to his stepmother, a veteran Leon County sheriff deputy. Ikner was injured within the capturing and is anticipated to spend vital time within the hospital, in response to Tallahassee Police Division Chief Lawrence Revell.

Within the aftermath of the capturing on Thursday, individuals who knew Ikner stated he had a historical past of espousing radical conspiracy theories and hateful concepts. The president of a scholar politics membership stated Ikner “espoused a lot white supremacist rhetoric” that they booted him from the group.

What do the newest information present?

The brand new information supplied by the ADL present that the politics scholar adopted the terminology and imagery of white supremacists from Nazi Germany and the U.S.

Hill stated a group of about 20 researchers on the anti-hate group combed by way of Ikner’s exercise after he was named by police because the suspected shooter. The analysis director stated the group’s investigators routinely analyze suspected mass shooters’ on-line actions, aiming to uncover any extremist ideological leanings earlier than on-line accounts are wiped.

Different troubling indicators within the FSU case, in response to the ADL, embody web searches of the phrases “scientific racism” and “nationwide accomplice flag.” The ADL collected the screenshots exhibiting the searches from Ikner’s frequent livestreams.

One other account linked to Ikner used the image for Patriot Entrance, the main White nationalist group within the U.S. that fashioned within the aftermath of the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left an individual lifeless, in response to Hill.

The account bearing the group’s brand was named “Insurgent,” information present. Hill stated the group is the most important and most energetic White supremacist group in America in the present day.

“It’s simply regarding,” stated Hill. “What we’re seeing – if in actual fact this particular person has extremist views and it appears on the very least he was uncovered to extremism – is the continued crossover between extremism and the glorification of violence that finally results in violence.”

Different mass shooter suspects adopted related rhetoric

Fascination with extremist figures is not at all unusual in sure circles. Many suspected and confirmed mass shooters present patterns of adopting White supremacist imagery on-line.

The gunman behind a capturing in January at Antioch Excessive College in Nashville, Tennessee, that left one scholar lifeless earlier than the 17-year-old turned the gun on himself, repeated Nazi, antisemitic screeds in his writings, in response to the ADL. He used “88,” a White supremacist code that means Heil Hitler, in display screen names.

ADL researchers additionally discovered that the shooter behind an assault in December at a Madison, Wisconsin, highschool that left two individuals lifeless and 6 wounded reposted White supremacist and antisemitic memes. The teenager died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound after the assault.

The 15-year-old’s account bio used the phrase “‘Completely regular day,’” wording usually utilized by racist customers to suggest the abbreviation “TND,” with T for “complete,” N for a racist slur and D for “loss of life,” the ADL researchers wrote within the report.

What did Ikner say at school?

Revelations round Ikner’s on-line profiles come after fellow college students stated he espoused extremist concepts at school.

“I obtained into arguments with him at school over how gross the issues he stated have been,” Lucas Luzietti, a politics scholar who shared a category with Ikner, informed USA TODAY.

In accordance with the Florida native, Ikner touted proper wing conspiracy theories and hateful concepts. Amongst them was a concept that President Joe Biden illegally got here into workplace, “Rosa Parks was within the mistaken” and Black individuals have been ruining his neighborhood.

“I bear in mind pondering this man shouldn’t have entry to firearms,” Luzietti informed USA TODAY. However, “what are you alleged to do?”

Reid Seybold, a former Tallahassee State Faculty scholar who transferred to Florida State concurrently Ikner, recalled how they crossed paths at their old skool, in response to NBC Information.

Seybold stated they belonged to a “political spherical desk” membership the place the group finally requested Ikner to go away over the hateful issues he stated.

“Mainly our solely rule was no Nazis — colloquially talking — and he espoused a lot white supremacist rhetoric, and far-right rhetoric as properly, to the purpose the place we needed to train that rule,” Seybold stated.

This text initially appeared on USA TODAY: Suspected FSU shooter’s net path exhibits fascination with Nazis, Hitler