University of Virginia authorities have announced that a student and former football player has been taken into custody by police in connection with the shooting deaths of three current players and injuries to two others late Sunday on the school’s main campus in Charlottesville.
UVA Police Chief Timothy Longo Sr. told reporters Monday morning that a manhunt had ended and a lockdown had been lifted, and that the suspect, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., was being charged with three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony.
Approximately 80 miles east of Charlottesville, Jones was captured peacefully in Henrico Local at roughly 11 a.m. ET, according to a statement released by the county police department. Upon being recognized by an officer in eastern Henrico, Jones was “brought into custody without incident,” as stated in a press statement from the police department.
The police have not provided a possible explanation for the assault.
University President Jim Ryan identified the victims as Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr., and D’Sean Perry. One of the students is in critical condition and the other is in excellent condition, he added, refusing to provide any details about the identities of the victims.
Andrew Martin, the head football coach at University Lab School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said that one of the two wounded pupils was named Michael Hollins. A junior at UVA, Hollins plays running back for the Cavaliers’ football team. CNN has tried to contact Hollins’s family many times but has heard nothing back.
According to Michael Hollins Sr., Hollins’ father, the bullet entered his son’s back and stuck in his stomach. A family member of Hollins Sr. informed the Post that Hollins Jr.
Ryan described the day as “sad, upsetting, and heartbreaking” for the University of Virginia community. I want to express my sincere condolences to the families and friends of the victims.
UVA sports director Carla Williams released a statement saying that, as a mother, she feels terrible for the victims’ families.
Williams mourned the loss of “three outstanding and bright young guys.” Even while we will never know how the world might have changed because of them, we will never forget the impression they had on our lives. Lavel, D’Sean, and Devin are all people I miss a lot. Peace, consolation, and hope to their families, I pray.
Virginia’s head football coach, Tony Elliot, released a statement in which he claimed it was difficult to “convey the sadness and anguish that our team is experiencing tonight.”
These were outstanding young men with lofty goals and promising futures. Our hearts go out to their loved ones, their teachers, and their classmates. Too quickly the Lord called these noble youths from us,” Elliot lamented. They are a blessing to our family and we are lucky to have them. As ambassadors of our program, institution, and community, they left an indelible mark on us, motivated us, and put in many hours of hard work.
68 school shootings, including 15 on college campuses, have occurred in the United States so far this school year, CNN reports, with at least one person shot in each incident. The 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, in which a 23-year-old student murdered 32 people before committing himself, is still the bloodiest school shooting in contemporary US history.
The Gun Violence Archive, which like CNN counts situations in which at least four people are shot, excluding the gunman, places the shooting at the University of Virginia campus among the almost 600 mass shootings in the United States this year.
