FSU shooting: Sadly, not the first time

Thursday’s tragic shooting at Florida State University, leaving two dead and six injured, was sadly not the only time random gun violence has rocked the capital city campus.

In 2014, just after midnight on Nov. 20, a paranoid former student drove to Tallahassee and tried to enter Strozier Library with a .380 semiautomatic handgun. He was stymied by the turnstiles in the lobby and retreated outside, where he would ultimately begin shooting. His gun jammed and campus police quickly killed the shooter. Two students received relatively minor injuries, but a third, 21-year-old biomedical engineering student Ronny Ahmed, was instantly paralyzed by a shot that severed his spinal cord.

Ahmed would return to classes at FSU, but a 2018 story and photo essay in the Tampa Bay Times graphically described the pain and other challenges he faced living as a paraplegic.

“Even three and a half years later now, I am still learning how to live with this new life,” he told the reporter, after appearing at a protest at the Capitol. “The reason I’m saying all of this is that I need everyone to understand that the only purpose for a gun is to kill.”

Accompanied by his service dog, Ahmed received his FSU diploma from President Richard McCullough in May 2024.

While an attack at a Tallahassee hot yoga studio in November 2018 wasn’t on campus, the two women killed by a misogynistic gunman that day had close ties to the university community.

Maura Binkley was a 21-year-old senior at FSU, and 61-year-old physician Nancy Van Vessem was chief medical officer at Capital Health Plan (CHP) and one of the first instructors at FSU’s newly created College of Medicine.

The murderer shot four others and pistol-whipped another — all survived — and would end up killing himself outside the business. He was described in a news story at the time by the Tallahassee Police Chief as “a disturbed individual who harbored a hatred toward women.”

CHP has named its Center for Healthy Aging in Van Vessem’s honor, and the medical school created a memorial fund for students from or willing to practice in the rural counties of Northwest Florida.

A “United Against Hate” rally was planned for April 17, the date of the most recent shooting, in part to remember Binkley. It was canceled.

“All classes and university events, including athletics events, scheduled for Thursday, April 17, 2025, have been canceled,” according to FSU’s alert website.