Update: The alleged shooter in the U.Va. attack on Sunday reportedly was an ex-football player, while the three victims killed in the assault also were football players.
The players were Devin Chandler, a wide receiver from Virginia Beach, Va.; Lavel Davis, a wide receiver from Dorchester, S.C.; and D’Sean Perry, a linebacker from Miami, Fla., NPR reported.
The suspect, Chris Darnell Jones, was apprehended on Monday morning after a manhunt that lasted more than 12 hours, the school reported.
The news broke on the same day as four University of Idaho students also were found dead in a suspected homicide near the campus.
Original story below:
(Headline USA) A fatal shooting at a University of Virginia parking garage killed three people wounded two others and sent police on a manhunt Monday in search of a student suspected in the attack, officials said.
Classes at the school were canceled Monday a day after the shooting and the Charlottesville campus seemed deserted as authorities searched for the suspect, who University of Virginia President Jim Ryan identified as Christopher Darnell Jones Jr.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said agents were responding to the campus to assist in the investigation.
In a letter to the university posted on social media, Ryan said the shooting around 10:30 p.m. Sunday.
An update on the active shooter incident at UVA: pic.twitter.com/LLshF8JJcR
— Jim Ryan (@presjimryan) November 14, 2022
The university’s emergency management issued an alert Sunday night notifying the campus community of an “active attacker firearm.” The message warned students to shelter in place following a report of shots fired on Culbreth Road on the northern outskirts of campus.
Access to the shooting scene was blocked by police vehicles Monday morning. The city and campus were far quieter than normal, with only a smattering of traffic and dog-walkers.
The UVA Police Department posted a notice online saying multiple police agencies including the state police were searching for a suspect who was considered “armed and dangerous.”
In his letter to campus, the university president said Jones was suspected to have committed the shooting and that he was a student, who was still at large Monday morning.
“This is a message any leader hopes never to have to send, and I am devastated that this violence has visited the University of Virginia,” Ryan wrote. “This is a traumatic incident for everyone in our community.”
The university’s emergency management Twitter account said shortly before 7 a.m. Monday that “a complete search on and around UVA Grounds” by law enforcement was underway and urged people on campus to remain sheltered.
Eva Surovell, 21, the editor in chief of the student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, said that after students received an alert about an active shooter late Sunday night, she ran to the parking garage, but saw that it was blocked off by police. When she went to a nearby intersection, she was told to go shelter in place.
“A police officer told me that the shooter was nearby and I needed to return home as soon as possible,” she said.
She waited with other reporters, hoping to get additional details, then returned to her room to start working on the story. The gravity of the situation sunk in.
“My generation is certainly one that’s grown up with generalized gun violence, but that doesn’t make it any easier when it’s your own community,” she said.
Charlottesville, a deep-blue enclave in an otherwise red part of Virginia, has seen its share of negative headlines over the past decade—from the Rolling Stone rape hoax; to the 2014 murder of U.Va. student Hannah Graham, which was later linked to a serial killer; to the 2017 clashes between Antifa and those protesting on behalf of two Confederate monuments.
However, the city—previously known for its relative safety and affluence—has fallen into disrepute like many other deep blue cities due to a woke agenda that includes defunding police and legalizing marijuana. The school, famously founded by Thomas Jefferson, also has lowered its standards considerably in recent years as it seeks to increase profits.
Following the 2017 riots, some of which involved a protest on school grounds by a tiki-torch wielding mob of collared-shirt-wearing protestors, the school took aggressive steps to ban weapons.
According to the school’s bylaws, “[t]he possession, storage, or use of any weapon by any University student, faculty, employee, contractor, trainee, or volunteer is prohibited on University property … regardless of whether a person has a concealed weapon permit.”
The same applies to any visitors of the school grounds.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
