Law Enforcement Fails to Consider Psychiatric Drugging Behind FSU Shooting

April 28, 2028

Another school shooting another bogus psychiatric diagnosis. Luckily, it didn’t take years to find out that the Florida State University (FSU) shooter had been diagnosed with a mental disorder and “medicated.”  But now that that information is out there, one cannot help but wonder when the shooter’s descent into deadly violence began. Given the history of these school shooters, it isn’t going out on a limb to suggest that he’d been diagnosed and drugged for some time.

Twenty-year old Phoenix Ikner, the stepson of a Deputy, killed two and wounded six others at the FSU Tallahassee campus. News accounts of the shooter explain that he had been suffering from “emotional dysregulation” and had “come off his prescription medication.” What medication? Once again, the reporters covering these shootings fail to ask the follow up question…what medication was the shooter prescribed that he was not taking? 

How hard can this be? There are numerous examples of mass shooters who were “treated” for some alleged mental disorder and the psychiatric drugging information is, at some point, made available by family or legal representation. Why not ask the question? How can someone reporting that the shooter stopped taking the prescribed medication and not be curious about the reported “treatment?”  It is completely unfathomable or simply incompetent.

So, let’s consider for a moment what may be expected when one is diagnosed with Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD). According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V), DMDD is a new disorder apparently created to address the over diagnosing of bipolar disorder in children. Apparently DMDD is closely related to the psychiatric diagnosis of BiPolar disorder and is characterized by severe temper outbursts with irritable and angry moods most of the day, every day.

Now let’s put on our Reporter hats and wonder whether shooter Ikner had been diagnosed with bipolar, ADHD, anxiety or any other alleged psychiatric disorder prior to the DMDD diagnosis. In other words, what is shooter Ikner’s complete mental health background? Normally, when the information finally is released on the shooters, there is a long history of many diagnoses and numerous medications prescribed – drug cocktails — as “treatment.”

So, does shooter Ikner have a more extensive mental health background? Let’s consider, for example, that the Nashville Police denied that Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale was not drugged only to later learn that the trans shooter had been “treated” for numerous alleged mental illnesses and prescribed an untold number of drug cocktails since the age of seven. Yeah, twenty years of being “treated” with cocktails of mind-altering drugs and everyone is wondering why Hale snapped? But what is interesting is the lengths of which all involved are going to keep Hale’s drug regimen secret. Is Ikner another in a long line of children who are victims of the behavioral health system? And, just for information purposes let’s consider what Ikner’s medication may have been and what the known side effects could be. 

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) because DMDD is fairly new, few studies have been conducted about specific treatments. But the federal mental health agency explains that DMDD generally includes certain types of psychotherapy (talk therapy) and, while “there are no medications approved by the FDA for treating children with DMDD, however health care providers may prescribe certain medications – such as stimulants, antidepressants, and atypical antipsychotics – to help relieve the child’s DMDD symptoms.”

Of course, when there is no drug approved for the specific alleged mental disorder, then doctors may prescribe a drug “off-label.”  And off-label drugging goes on all the time. So which drug was prescribed “off-label” to shooter Ikner? Was it shooter Ikner’s first psychiatric drug or had the shooter been a long-time user of experimental psychiatric drug “treatments?”

Ironically, news reports reflect that police have yet to establish a motive for the senseless attack. Of course, anyone with any history of looking into school shootings would recommend that law enforcement consider Ikner’s mental health history with an emphasis on the mind-altering drugs prescribed. 

And, if it’s helpful, let’s consider what the possible side effect of stimulants and antidepressants might be. Possible adverse events associated with stimulants include agitation, hostility, panic, aggression, paranoia and hallucinations and suicidal and homicidal tendencies. And the possible adverse events associated with antidepressants include insomnia, abnormal dreams, agitation, emotional lability, hostility, mania, depersonalization, paranoid reaction and suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempt. 

I don’t know. It sure sounds like the drugs could cause the violent behavior that is associated with these mass shootings.  But, of course, it’s just common sense that knowing the possible adverse drug events helps to understand why the entire mental health background is necessary. 

The fact that law enforcement may not even be considering Ikner’s psychiatric drug history says a lot about the mental health information blackout. But given that one in four Americans takes at least one prescription psychiatric mind-altering drug, it really is, at this point, incompetence that law enforcement isn’t making mental health drug information first on its list of possible reasons behind these senseless shootings.

It is time for lawmakers to pass legislation that will make it mandatory to release, and make public, all the mental health records of mass shooters to finally understand the connection between violence and psychiatric drugs. Without this drug history and mental health information, communities can, unfortunately, expect more of the same. 

What you can do.  Sign the Petition calling for federal hearings!

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