A Florida State student recalled a horrifying moment when he and his classmates used gum that they bite to cover classroom windows with paper when the shooting rang during Thursday’s mass shooting.
Jeffrey Lafley He spoke to Good Morning America Gunshots exploded as he and other quick-thinking students began desperately chewing gum after the professor realized there was no tape to hold the sheet of paper on the window.
“I hear pop pop,” he said in an interview Friday.
“The teacher was asking if any of us had tape to stick the paper on, and since no one had the tape, some of us came out the gum and started chewing, so we stuck the paper on the window.”
The shooter, identified by police as Phoenix Eekner, a 20-year-old FSU student, the deputy son of the Leon County Sheriff, killed two and injured five people Thursday afternoon when he fired fire on the Tallahassee campus with his stepmother’s former service weapon.
The fatal rampage began near a student union building on campus, with tragic footage being filmed the moment a gunman unloaded multiple slugs and walked the area.
Graduate student Madison Askins, 23, was walking with a friend near the Student Union when she was shot in the butt club from behind. He then fell to the ground, closed his eyes and died.
“I let go of all my muscles in my body, closed my eyes and held my breath. He told ABC News.
“I know I’m sure he shot me again or not,” Askins said. She tweeted that students were scattered and “continue running,” adding that she heard the killer reload his weapon and mutter.
Heavyly armed first responders gathered in the area and said officers refused to comply with orders before being shot by police.
Ichner is among those receiving treatment at local hospitals and is expected to survive.
Two Aramark employees – Til Chava, 45, Robert Morales, have been identified as the two victims killed in a fatal attack.
The motive behind the fatal shooting has not been revealed.
