CNN
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Police have arrested a University of Virginia student suspected of fatally shooting three football players and wounding two others late Sunday on the school’s main campus in Charlottesville as a bus returned from a class field trip, officials said. school.
The suspect, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., faces three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a crime, UVA Police Chief Timothy Longo Sr. told reporters. and authorities lifted a blocking order.
Killed were Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry, all members of the UVA football team, university president Jim Ryan said. The two injured students are being treated at UVA Medical Center, with one in critical condition and the other in fair condition, he said, declining to release their names.
“This is a sad, shocking and tragic day for our UVA community,” Ryan said. “Let me say how sorry I am for the victims and their family and friends.”
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Monday’s classes at the university are canceled, as are those at Charlottesville City Schools, the K-12 district said in a letter to families.
The shelter-in-place alert went out around 10:40 p.m. after a shooting was reported on Culbreth Road, the University of Virginia Police Department said. Police in an initial tweet identified the location of the shooting like a parking garage located across from the university’s drama building and a stone’s throw from the band building, the fine arts library and the school of architecture.
Police have not given a motive for the attack.
At least 68 shootings have taken place this year on US school grounds, including 15 on college campuses, CNN reports, with at least one person shot in each case, not including the shooter. The deadliest school shooting in modern US history remains the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, where a 23-year-old student killed 32 people before committing suicide.
The Charlottesville campus shooting is also one of nearly 600 mass shootings in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which like CNN reports cases in which at least four people have been shot, excluding the shooter. .
The suspect is listed on UVA’s athletics website as a 2018 football player who did not play in a game as a freshman. Jones attended Varina High School and Petersburg High School, where he played football as a linebacker and running back, according to his college athletics bio. While in high school, Jones was president of the Key Club and a member of the National Honor Society and the National Technical Honor Society, the bio says.
UVA students early Monday were told to “take shelter-in-place orders seriously as the situation remains active,” said vice president and chief student affairs officer Robyn Hadley. an email for the UVA student body.
“We’ve all gotten some shelter texts and they’re scary,” Hadley said, adding that several police jurisdictions were working to locate the suspect. “I’m in the basics like many of you; I am sheltering in place and in direct contact with University and UPD leadership… If you are not inside and safe, seek security immediately.”
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and his wife are praying for the school community, he said on Twitter, adding that Virginia State Police are “fully coordinating” with the school and local police.
Meanwhile, another US campus – the University of Idaho – is reeling after police announced a homicide investigation after officers on Sunday discovered four people dead in a house outside the Moscow campus. The dead were students and the cause of their deaths is not yet known, the university confirmed, adding that the threat has ended.
Sunday’s shooting is the latest high-profile spat with violence at the University of Virginia: White nationalists in August 2017 marched through campus carrying torches and chanting racist slogans. A day later, demonstrators protesting Charlottesville’s plan to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee clashed with counter-protesters, one of whom was killed when a man drove his car into a crowd; that driver is serving a life sentence.
A UVA lacrosse player five years ago was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison for the 2010 slaying of his ex-girlfriend, Yeardley Love, in her off-campus apartment.
