Suspect in FSU mass shooting that killed 2 to face trial in November
Phoenix Ikner, 20, is accused of killing two people and wounding several others after opening fire near the university's student union just before lunchtime on April 17.
The FSU political science student, who's the stepson of a local sheriff's deputy, was later charged with two counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted first-degree murder.
At a case management conference Wednesday in Tallahassee, 2nd Judicial Circuit Judge Lance Neff said jury selection in the case is set to begin Nov. 3.
Public defense attorney Peter Mills, who is representing Ikner, objected to the judge's timeline, saying he is 'still investigating the case' and adding, 'My client's entitled to effective assistance of counsel.'
The judge acknowledged the defense's concerns, telling Mills, 'We can talk about what you need' to properly investigate the case.
Prosecutors accuse Ikner of killing two people in the rampage: 57-year-old Robert Morales, a longtime dining hall employee, and 45-year-old Tiru Chabba, a married father of two from South Carolina who worked for a university vendor.
Five other victims were wounded by gunfire, while another person was injured while attempting to run from the shooting, Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell said.
Ikner was formally charged on May 12 after being released from a local hospital, 'following an extended stay and multiple surgeries to treat injuries he sustained during the April 17 shooting,' the Tallahassee Police Department said.
If convicted of the top charge, Ikner could face the death penalty.
______
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News24
3 minutes ago
- News24
State to appeal 12 SANDF soldiers' bail in murder of Frans Mathipa, double kidnapping
The State will appeal a decision handed down at the Randburg Magistrate's Court, Johannesburg, to grant bail to 12 SANDF members accused of kidnapping and murder. Fani Mahuntsi/Gallo Images via Getty Images
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
£10,000 reward for information about alleged murder of newborn found in canal
A £10,000 reward is being offered for information about the alleged murder of a newborn baby boy whose body was found in a canal more than four years ago. The body was discovered in the Wyrley and Essington Canal at Rough Wood Country Park, near Willenhall in the West Midlands, in May 2021, and despite police investigations and appeals, the baby's mother has still not been identified. West Midlands Police is treating the newborn's death as murder and independent charity Crimestoppers is offering a £10,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the offences linked to the baby boy's death. Detective Superintendent Jim Munro said in a statement at the scene that officers believe the baby was full-term and light-skinned and urged his parents to come forward. He said: 'What we are doing today is, we are coming back to the scene and we are asking for information in relation to the identity of that baby's parents or directly appealing to the parents to come forward and give us information to explain what happened to the baby.' He added: 'Four years on, loyalties may have changed, information may have come to hand to people. We ask those people to come forward and provide us with that information. 'I urge people to think of their consciences, think of what information may have come to their notice, whether that be at the time and they didn't feel the need to come forward, or now four years on, to help us understand what happened to that poor baby.' At the time, officers said the baby was 'probably not alive' when he was put into the canal and may have been in the water for up to four days before being discovered by a passer-by in a stretch of canal off Hunts Lane. Mr Munro said the baby boy deserves justice and his 'short life and tragic death must not be forgotten'. Alan Edwards, West Midlands regional manager at Crimestoppers, said: 'This is a particularly sad and tragic case that has deeply affected the local community. 'We urgently need information that can help bring justice for this little boy and support for his mother. 'We believe someone out there knows something and we want to encourage them to come forward anonymously. 'The £10,000 reward is offered to prompt anyone with information to speak up, no matter how small the detail.' Crimestoppers can be contacted anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at No personal details are taken, information is not traced or recorded, and you will not go to court.
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US authors suing Anthropic can band together in copyright class action, judge rules
By Blake Brittain (Reuters) -A California federal judge ruled on Thursday that three authors suing artificial intelligence startup Anthropic for copyright infringement can represent writers nationwide whose books Anthropic allegedly pirated to train its AI system. U.S. District Judge William Alsup said the authors can bring a class action on behalf of all U.S. writers whose works Anthropic allegedly downloaded from "pirate libraries" LibGen and PiLiMi to create a repository of millions of books in 2021 and 2022. Alsup said Anthropic may have illegally downloaded as many as 7 million books from the pirate websites, which could make it liable for billions of dollars in damages if the authors' case is successful. Spokespeople for Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision. An attorney for the authors declined to comment. Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson sued Anthropic last year, arguing that the Amazon- and Alphabet-backed startup used their books without permission or compensation to teach its chatbot Claude to respond to human prompts. The case is one of several high-stakes lawsuits brought by authors, news outlets and other copyright owners against companies including OpenAI, Microsoft and Meta Platforms over their AI training. AI companies argue their systems make fair use of copyrighted material to create new, transformative content. Alsup determined in June that Anthropic's AI training made fair use of authors' works, but said the company still violated their rights by saving pirated copies of their books to a "central library of all the books in the world" that would not necessarily be used for AI training. Alsup said on Thursday the three authors could represent all writers whose books Anthropic allegedly downloaded from LibGen and PiLiMi, rejecting Anthropic's argument that identifying all of the copyright-eligible works and their authors would be impractical.
