LAKELAND, FL — Lakeland student Ian Townsend shares new details about the suspected shooter from Thursday's mass shooting.
Police identified Phoenix Ikner as the man accused of killing two people and hurting six others at Florida State University.
WATCH: "It's despicable:" Lakeland man reflects on class experience with suspected FSU shooter
Before going to FSU, Ikner went to Tallahassee State College, where he shared two classes with Townsend. It was Townsend's first semester, and he said Ikner would always sit in the front of the classroom.
"He was just kind of a quiet guy," said Townsend. "A little bit socially awkward."
When gunfire erupted at FSU on Thursday, Townsend said he was floored and disturbed because he knew that Ikner was his former classmate.
"It was a lot of anger, obviously, because your feet from somebody that did something that disgusting," said Townsend. "And they're spewing this like hatred. And all of these like ideologies."
Ikner is a registered Republican, and Townsend said he always made that clear in class.
"He never spewed outright white supremacist views in front of me, but he did talk about lots of right wing, you know, propaganda and such," said Townsend."He told everybody in class he was Republican for no reason like when there was no point to."
While digging into Ikner's background in a story on Friday, our I-team's Katie Lagrone spoke with a different classmate who had similar interactions.
"He would joke about deaths of minorities. He said Rosa Parks was in the wrong," said Lucas Luzietti.
Looking back on it, Townsend said the red flags were there. "It's despicable," said Townsend.
“You know, I gave him probably the biggest hug I could ever recall giving him, and he held on tight"
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