TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The victims of the April 17 mass shooting at Florida State University (FSU) have been identified.
Two people were killed and six others were injured when a 20-year-old FSU student, who is the stepson of a Leon County Sheriff’s deputy, opened fire near the school’s student union just before noon. The gunman reportedly used his stepmother’s former service weapon during the attack, which she had kept for personal use after the force upgraded to new weapons.
The shooter was injured by responding campus officers when he did not comply with commands. He was taken into custody within five minutes of the attack.
Deceased FSU Shooting Victims Identified as Robert Morales and Tiru Chabba
The two deceased victims are 57-year-old Robert Morales and 45-year-old Tiru Chabba, CBS News reports. Morales is a longtime employee in FSU’s dining services department. He was attending a meeting with other university employees when gunfire erupted.
Morales’ death was confirmed in a social media post made by his brother on Thursday evening.
“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.”
Chabba, a husband and father of two, was an executive for Aramark Collegiate Hospitality, which supplies food to universities.
Injured FSU Victims
All victims and the alleged gunman were treated at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare. Five victims were being treated for gunshot wounds while a sixth victim was injured while fleeing the scene. Hospital staff announced on Friday that all patients were in stable condition, with one of them in fair condition. Out of the six patients, two needed abdominal surgery and one needed facial surgery. The others suffered gunshot wounds to their extremities. By Saturday, hospital staff announced one victim was released while the others were upgraded to good condition.
One of the victims injured by gunfire has been identified as 23-year-old FSU graduate student Madison Askins. She was headed to lunch with a friend at the student union when the gunman opened fire. Askins tripped and fell as she tried to run. The gunman shot her in the buttocks.
“The minute I got shot, I remember my parents telling me I just need to play dead,” she told CBS News in an interview from her hospital bed. “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.”
RELATED: Preventing Active Shooter Incidents Through Student Behavior Analysis
Askins said the shooter was so close to her after she collapsed to the ground that she could hear him muttering to himself as he reloaded his weapon.
“It was just calm,” she recalled. “[He] literally said, ‘Yeah, keep running.'”
Hospital Staff Credits Proximity to Campus, Relationships with Law Enforcement for Quick Patient Treatment
Dr. Brett Howard, a trauma surgeon and surgery team leader at Tallahassee Memorial, said the hospital was notified of the shooting shortly before noon Thursday.
“The hardest part of it all is not knowing how many patients you’re going to get,” he said, noting the hospital brought in additional staff to prepare for the worst.
Howard said the proximity of the hospital to FSU helped with the quick response and immediate treatment as all six patients were seen within an hour. Howard also said the relationships between hospital staff, law enforcement, and first responders helped the process go smoothly.
