CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A University of Virginia student shot and killed three members of the school’s football team as they returned from a field trip, authorities said, setting off panic and a 12-hour lockdown of the campus until the suspect was captured Monday.
The violence that erupted near a parking garage late Sunday also wounded two students. Police searched through the night for the gunman.
Officials got word during a morning news briefing that the suspect, 22-year-old Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., had been arrested.
“Just give me a moment to thank God, breathe a sigh of relief,” university Police Chief Timothy Longo Sr. said after learning Jones was in custody.
The shooting happened just after 10:15 p.m. Sunday as a charter bus full of students returned from seeing a play in Washington.
University President Jim Ryan said authorities did not have a “full understanding” of the motive or circumstances surrounding the shooting.
“The entire university community is grieving this morning,” a visibly strained Ryan said. “My heart is broken for the victims and their families and for all those who knew and loved them.”
The killings happened at a time when the nation is on edge from a string of mass shootings during the last six months, including a shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas; a shooting at a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb that killed seven people and wounded more than 30; and a shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that killed 10 people and wounded three.
Students who were told to shelter in place as police searched for the gunman described terrifying hours as they hid in closets, dorm rooms, libraries and apartments. They listened to police scanners and tried to remember everything they were taught as children during active-shooter drills.
Shannon Lake, a third-year student from Crozet, Virginia, ended up spending 12 hours with friends in a lab room, much of the time in a storage closet. She thought a lot about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which left 20 children and six educators dead.
“It just kind of brought all those feelings back up again, and reminded us that this is still an ongoing issue in our country, which is really sad,” Lake said.
Elizabeth Paul, a student from northern Virginia, was working at a computer in the library when she got a call from her mom, who had received word about the shooting.
Paul said she initially brushed off any concern, thinking it was probably something minor. She realized she needed to take it seriously when her computer lit up with a warning about an active shooter.
“I think it said, ‘Run. Hide. Fight,’” she said.
Paul said she stayed huddled with several others in the library for about 12 hours. She spent most of the night on the phone with her mom.
“Not even talking to her the whole time necessarily, but she wanted the line to be on so that if I needed something she was there,” she said.
Ryan identified the three slain students as: Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry. He said one of the wounded students was hospitalized in critical condition, and the other was in good condition.
The shooting touched off an intense manhunt, with authorities conducting a building-by-building search of the campus while students sheltered in place. The lockdown order was lifted late Monday morning.
Jones was taken into custody without incident in suburban Richmond, police said.
Authorities obtained arrest warrants for Jones charging him with three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony, Longo said.
It was not immediately clear whether Jones had an attorney or when he would make his first court appearance.
Jones had once been on the football team, but he had not been part of the team for at least a year, Longo said. The UVA football website listed him as a team member during the 2018 season and said he did not play in any games.
Hours after Jones was arrested, first-year head football coach Tony Elliott sat alone outside the athletic building used by the team, at times with his head in his hands. He said the victims “were all good kids” and that he would talk more about them “when the time is right.”
Jones came to the attention of the university’s threat-assessment team this fall after a person unaffiliated with the school reported a remark Jones apparently made about possessing a gun, Longo said.
No threat was reported in conjunction with the concern about the weapon, but officials looked into it, following up with Jones’ roommate.
Longo also said Jones had been involved in a “hazing investigation of some sort.” He said he did not have all the facts and circumstances of that case, though he said the probe was closed after witnesses failed to cooperate.
In addition, officials learned about a prior incident outside Charlottesville involving a weapons violation, Longo said. That incident was not reported to the university as it should have been, he said.
Em Gunter, a second-year anthropology student, heard three gunshots and then three more while she was studying genetics in her dorm room.
She knew right away there was an active shooter outside and told others to go in their rooms, shut their blinds and turn off the lights. “Everyone in the hallway was freaking out. No one knew what to do,” she said.
For the next 12 hours, she stayed in her room with a friend, listening to a police scanner and messaging her family and friends who were stuck in other areas of the campus.
Students know from active shooter drills how to respond, she said.
“But how do we deal with it afterwards?” she asked. “What’s it going to be like in a week, in a month?”
Eva Surovell, the editor in chief of the student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, said that after students received an alert about an active shooter, 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.
“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.
Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom said in a letter to the UVA community that classes and other academic activities would be canceled on Tuesday. A university-wide vigil is being planned for a later date.
Elsewhere, police in Moscow, Idaho, were investigating the deaths of four University of Idaho students found Sunday in a home near the campus.
Officers discovered the deaths when they responded to a report of an unconscious person, authorities said.
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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Ben Finley in Norfolk, Va.; Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Va.; Sarah Brumfield in Silver Spring, Md.; John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; Hank Kurz in Charlottesville, Va.; Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire; and news researcher Rhonda Shafner; as well as videojournalist Nathan Ellegren and photographer Steve Helber in Charlottesville.
