Two people were killed and six were injured on April 17 during a mass shooting at Florida State University‘s Student Union, officials said.
Five victims were wounded by gunfire while a sixth was injured while fleeing the scene, police confirmed.
The alleged shooter, identified as 20-year-old FSU student Phoenix Ikner, was also wounded by responding officers and remained in the hospital.
As of Monday, April 21, three of the six gunshot patients received at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital had been discharged, while two more were expected to be released soon, the hospital said.
A six patient, presumably the suspected shooter, remained hospitalized in good condition, officials said.
2 victims killed in FSU shooting
Authorities have not released the names of any victims. However, family members have identified the victims as Robert Morales, a university dining worker, and Tiru Chabba, a campus vendor.
Tiru Chabba
Tiru Chabba, a 45-year-old father of two, was killed in the shooting, according to a law firm representing the family.
Chabba was on the FSU campus Thursday for his job as an employee of a campus vendor when the gunman opened fire, attorney Bakari Sellers of the Strom Law Firm said in a statement on Friday afternoon.
Chabba is survived by his wife and two children.
Strom Law Firm
“Tiru Chabba’s family is going through the unimaginable now,” Sellers said in a statement. “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.”
“We ask you to keep his family in your thoughts and prayers as we fight to ensure they see justice that honors the memories of Mr. Chabba and all the victims of Thursday’s shooting.”
Robert Morales
Robert Morales, 57, was a longtime employee in the university’s dining services department. His death was confirmed by his brother, Ricardo Morales Jr., in a post on social media Thursday night.
“Today we lost my younger brother,” he wrote. “He was one of the victims killed at FSU. He loved his job at FSU and his beautiful wife and daughter. I’m glad you were in my life.”
Ricardo Morales Jr. also confirmed his brother’s death to CBS News Miami.
Ricardo Morales Jr. / Family
According to the Miami Herald, Robert Morales was attending a meeting with other university employees when the shooting erupted. He was also the son of Ricardo “Monkey” Morales, a controversial Cuban American CIA operative and anti-Castro militant active during the Cold War. The elder Morales was killed in a bar fight in Miami in 1982.
While the university has yet to officially confirm the victims’ names, memorials of candles and flowers have begun to appear across campus, and a vigil is scheduled for 5 p.m. Friday at Langford Green.
6 victims injured, 5 hospitalized
On Saturday, April 19, hospital staff sent out an update that one patient was sent home and that the others were good condition.
By Monday, April 21, a total of three patients of the FSU mass shooting had been released from the hospital, while two more were expected to be released soon, officials said. A six patient, presumably the suspected shooter, remained hospitalized in good condition, officials said.
Hospital staff provided an update on the victims’ conditions during a press conference on April 18 and briefly explained how each patient needed to be treated for gunshot wounds. The staff said at that time that all patients were in stable condition, with one of them in fair condition due to the extent of their injuries.
Five patients were victims, the sixth was the alleged shooter, police confirmed. A sixth victim was injured while fleeing the scene but was not wounded by gunfire, police confirmed.
Madison Askins
In an interview from her hospital bed, 23-year-old FSU graduate student Madison Askins recounted the terrifying moments she was shot during Thursday’s deadly attack on campus.
“The minute I got shot, I remember my parents telling me I just need to play dead,” Askins told CBS News. “So I released all the muscles in my body, I closed my eyes, I held my breath. I did everything I could to look like I was dead because I didn’t want him to shoot me again. God forbid.”
Askins was among the people wounded in the shooting at the university’s Student Union. She said the gunman was so close to her after she fell to the ground that she could hear him muttering to himself as he reloaded.
“It was just calm,” she said. “[He] literally said, ‘Yeah, keep running.'”
Help eventually arrived. Askins said the moment a police officer began tending to her injuries, she knew she had survived the worst.
CBS News
Tallahassee doctors recount moment they found out about the FSU shooting
According to Dr. Brett Howard, a trauma surgeon and the surgery team’s leader, the hospital was notified about the shooting shortly before noon Thursday and leadership and medical staff immediately prepared for however many victims they needed to treat.
“The hardest part of it all is not knowing how many patients you’re going to get,” he said, adding that TMH staff was very proactive with its communication systems in place and activated the necessary resources by bringing additional staff to prepare for the worst.
Howard said that the proximity of the hospital to the university also helped with the fast response and immediate treatment, adding that all six patients were seen within an hour of admission. He also highlighted that the relationship between hospital staff, law enforcement, and first responders also helped make the process go smoothly.
Out of the six patients, three were brought into the operating room for surgery, with two of them needing abdominal surgery and the third needing facial surgery. The other patients also suffered gunshot wounds to their extremities, hospital staff said, but didn’t specify exactly what kind of injuries they sustained.
One doctor also helped patients during 2014 FSU library shooting
Among the hospital staff that treated the victims, one of the doctors was able to speak about the comparison of medical response between Thursday’s shooting and the FSU library shooting over a decade ago.
Doctor Shelby Blank, a general and breast surgeon who also on staff during the 2014 shooting, said it was a “more limited situation” compared to Thursday’s tragedy.
“Unfortunately, traumatic violence is something that goes on, whether it’s a few over the course of a weekend versus many compressed into a couple of hours,” she said.
Blank continued, saying that Thursday’s shooting was “catastrophic.”
“Given the number of students in that compressed area, the recipe for disaster is very scary,” she said.
