Three UVA football players shot and killed, a fourth wounded, with a former player in custody and charged with murder (updates)
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Note: incoming updates to this story will be added below
Recap: UVA football players Lavel Davis Jr., D'Sean Perry, and Devan Chandler were shot and killed on a bus full of UVA students coming back from a field trip in DC late Sunday night. Two other UVA students were injured, including UVA football player Mike Hollins. The name of the other injured person has not been released. After a brief search, former UVA football player Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. was brought into custody and charged with three counts of second-degree murder.
During a press conference today, UVA Police Chief Tim Longo said that UVA’s Office of Student Affairs responded to a report that shooting suspect Jones made a comment in September about possessing a gun, had a prior concealed weapon violation outside of Charlottesville, and was involved in a hazing investigation.
» A good combination here to follow as the story unfolds: Daily Progress reporter Sydney Shuler, who has been following the UVA shooting story since it started, and former Daily Progress reporter Katherine Knott, who now writes for Inside Higher Ed. More good reporting is available from Eric Kolenich’s at the Richmond Times-Dispatch and from Washington Post reporters Martin Weil, Nick Anderson, Karina Elwood, Susan Svrluga and Katie Mettler.
» There’s a remarkable thread from Robert Armengol, an anthropologist and journalist who teaches at UVA, and who taught the shooting suspect Jones. "I agree with my brother, who has been treating children in our town for nearly 30 years. Thoughts and prayers are bunk. We need to address gun violence with gun policy."
Armengol avoids tying the tragedy to ideological issues or to the ongoing “Charlottesville” narrative - unfortunately, there has been a lot of that already, including a pretty awful one from the New York Times - and makes the connection between what happened last night and what we've been experiencing in Charlottesville for months now, including a shooting on Saturday that did not get much media attention.
» From Hawes Spencer for the Daily Progress: While the suspect Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. was apprehended and the shelter-in-place order lifted by late morning Monday, Carlos Armengol [parent of a UVa first-year student] predicted that the incident will raise the issue of gun control, something he supports.
"I'm tired of thoughts and prayers," said Armengol. "We need some wholesale changes in the U.S. with how we handle guns."
City Councilor Brian Pinkston, who has discussed a recent spate of city shootings at Council meetings, agrees.
"We won't know for a while the motivation, but I will say this nation has a problem with too many guns just floating around."
» Who were the young men killed? Nice work from sportswriters Greg Madia and Mike Barber on these profiles:
D'Sean Perry: https://bit.ly/3tvlp8k * Lavel Davis Jr.: http://bit.ly/3g0pe2t * Devin Chandler: https://bit.ly/3AeT5et
UPDATES:
»February 18, 2023: UVA plans to spend as much as $1.5 million on an investigation into the November 13 shooting, the DP found as a result of a FOIA request.
“At the heart of the matter for UVa is the need to know how one of its students, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., came to have guns in his dorm room that he allegedly used to kill D’Sean Perry, Lavel Davis Jr. and Devin Chandler on Nov. 13—and what, if anything, it could have done differently to prevent the tragedy.”
The DP also found that the lawyers conducting the review will be receiving between $1,100 and $1,700 an hour. Read more.
» December 15: Slain @UVA football player D’Sean Perry's parents have called for stricter gun laws and more mental health support to prevent future gun deaths. “I’m asking that the football world takes a stand and join us in this fight,” says Happy Perry, D’Sean Perry's mother. Read more.
» December 15: Michael Hollins Jr. said he and another teammate initially got off the bus..when they heard gunshots...but then he realized they were the only two who had been able to run away.
"It was just literally an instinct and a reaction to go back," said Hollins. Read/View more.
» December 14: Perry's parents said they plan to be active in the national push for gun safety regulations.
"If we don't do something about it, it will continue," Sean Perry said. "We’re just a voice. We’re just two voices just trying to make people aware of what happened to our son.” Read/View more.
» December 9: National law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP will carry out the external review of the events that led to the shooting deaths of three University of Virginia students last month, Attorney General Jason Miyares announced. Read more.
» December 8: “Because of the large amount of witnesses, I am not prepared to admit them to the court at this time,” prosecutor James Hingeley told the judge. A March 30 date was selected, but Hingeley asked that it be flexible as he works with witnesses. Read more.
» December 7: Christopher Darnell Jones, Jr., the man charged with murdering three UVA football players, and wounding two others, will make his second appearance in court tomorrow. The case is expected to go to trial in January or mid-February of 2023. Read more.
» November 30: A troubling video made a year before Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. shot and killed three fellow UVA students adds to a trail of warnings signs UVA failed to act upon. Read more.
» November 22: A GoFundMe has been set up for UVA shooting victim Marlee Morgan. She was released from the hospital along with survivor Mike Hollins.
» November 21: Mike Hollins and Marlee Morgan, the patients injured in the UVA shooting, have both been released from UVA Medical Center.
» November 19: Suspected UVA shooter Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. had a semi-automatic rifle, pistol, ammunition, magazines and a binary trigger in his on-Grounds dorm room (Bice House), according to a search warrant inventory obtained by the Daily Progress. A binary trigger increases a weapon’s firing speed. Unlike a bump stock, it is legal in most states. A 30-round magazine can be emptied in about three seconds. Read more.
» November 17: Suspected shooter Jones, who turned 23 Thursday, legally purchased two guns this year from Dance's Sporting Goods in Colonial Heights, the store's owner said, a Ruger AR-556 rifle and a Glock 45 9mm pistol with an additional magazine. It's unclear if the Glock was the gun used in the crime. After opening fire on the bus, Jones fired again outside the bus and then fled on foot. He then drove his black Dodge Durango roughly 80 miles east to eastern Henrico County. Around 11 a.m. Monday, November 14 police saw his car and initiated a traffic stop in the 5700 block of Edgelawn Street. They said they apprehended him without incident. Police haven't said where Jones went in the more than 12 hours he was sought. And officials aren't saying what caused Jones to open fire. - Eric Kolenich for the RTD.
» November 16: "We are inviting an external review with respect to the university's interactions with the suspect and whether we did all we could to prevent or avoid this tragedy," UVA President Jim Ryan said in a video message. A spokesperson for UVA said the school never reported suspected shooter Jones's case to the school's judiciary committee. In September, a student told the university Jones spoke of owning a gun. UVA also learned that he had previously pleaded guilty to a weapons violation (see below). Read More.
» November 16: GoFundMe has created a hub for fundraisers launched to support those affected by the UVA shooting.
» November 16: Shooting suspect Jones was caught carrying a concealed 9mm semiautomatic pistol during a traffic stop in Chesterfield County in February 2021. He did not have a permit. He was convicted of the gun charge in Chesterfield General District Court on June 10, 2021, and received a 12-month suspended jail sentence and $100 fine. Read more. Also: Per Mike Barber, Jones tried twice unsuccessfully to purchase guns in 2018 and 2021. He then purchased a pistol in July and a rifle in February of this year.
» November 16: UVA football player Mike Hollins underwent surgery and is recovering.
» November 16: Virginia football game Saturday against Coastal Carolina canceled. “A decision if Virginia will participate in its final game of the season, a Nov. 26 (Saturday) date against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, has not been made at this time.”
» November 16: Shooting suspect Jones is being held at the Albemarle County Regional Jail until his status hearing on December 8. According to DP's Sydney Shuler, "Evidence presented in court this morning says that Jones shot Devin Chandler as he slept on the bus on Sunday night." More reporting on this.
» November 16: Ryan Lynch, a 19-year-old neuroscience major at UVA, talked about her harrowing experience aboard the bus on which five of her classmates were shot. The students were in DC to see a play about Emmett Till for a class focused on African American playwrights. Even after this account from Lynch, it's difficult to understand why Jones decided to open fire when they returned to Charlottesville. Read more.
» November 15: CBS News speaks with the Mother of UVA shooting survivor Mike Hollins.
» November 15: Fifth person shot identified as Marlee Morgan; malicious wounding charges added
» November 14: Father of shooting suspect Chris Jones speaks: “What happened? Why did it have to get this far? He could’ve called me,” his father said. “I don’t know why he didn’t call me Saturday. If he had called me Saturday, I think maybe I could have talked him out of some things, maybe, hopefully.” More.
Note: this story will remain pinned on the website and will include updates as they come in. https://www.charlottesvilledtm.com/p/three-uva-football-players-shot-and