Does a photo show alleged FSU shooter Phoenix Ikner marching in an anti-Trump demonstration? No, that's not true: The picture shows Tallahassee Students for a Democratic Society organizer Oliver Cheese marching behind a banner that says "Fight Trump and the GOP agenda". Social media posts claiming or implying Ikner participated in the march likely were based on an FSU News article that mentioned him in a section about "onlookers" when reporting on the protest.
An example of someone pairing Iker's name with the image could be seen in this post on X (archived here) published on April 17, 2025 with a caption that read:
BREAKING: The FSU shooting suspect, 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, had previously attended an anti-Trump rally.
This is the full photo in question:
(Image source: Tallahassee Students for a Democratic Society Instagram post)
The image originally appeared in an Instagram post from the Tallahassee Students for a Democratic Society (archived here):
The picture quite clearly shows Oliver Cheese, whose Instagram bio (archived here) describes him as:
FSU Class of '27
Organizer with @tallysds
On the Freedom Road @freedomroadorg
The big Cheese
It linked to the Instagram account @tallysds, which is the account for the "Tallahassee Students for a Democratic Society" group.
In one of his pictures on Instagram (archived here) he can be seen wearing a "Freedom Road Socialist Organization" shirt:
A banner for that organization appeared in at least two of the pictures in the TSDS Instagram post:
(Image: collage created by Lead Stories based on Tallahassee Students for a Democratic Society Instagram post)
The likely cause of the confusion were social media posts containing a screenshot of an FSU News article mentioning Ikner's name and quoting him in connection with the protest. However, as Lead Stories showed here, Ikner was only mentioned in a section of the article describing and quoting "onlookers", not participants, in the protest.
