Three men are now dead after a University of Virginia student shot multiple students during a class field trip.
University Police say that the suspect is now in custody after an hours long speech.
One of the men killed had a Florida tie.
Around 10:30 Sunday evening, University Police say a bus of roughly 25 students were returning from Washington D.C. to watch a play. It was then that police received a call that multiple shots were fired, killing three UVA football players.
Those players were Devon Chandler, Lavell Davis, and Miami native, D’Sean Perry.
“He was very competitive, yet very humble,” explains Justin Cardoza. “He was very popular, but wasn’t a follower. He was kind of like the leader of the pack.”
Perry, a junior linebacker at the University of Virginia, is originally from Miami, Florida.
It is where he attended Gulliver Preparatory, and played football and basketball. While he played basketball at the school, he was coached by Justin Cardoza, starting in eight grade and all throughout high school.
“We texted pretty often. I haven’t been able to open those texts up yet,” Cardoza says with tears in his eyes.
The coach got emotional saying the last time he saw Perry was in March of this year.
Perry’s parents, according to their attorney Michael Haggard, tells CNN in part, that they thank South Florida and the Charlottesville community for the support they’ve received.
The statement further that they will not be speaking publicly out of respect for the UVA community which has been ‘terrorized by another mass shooting in the United States’.
“I get very emotional thinking about what his parents might be going through right now,” states Cardoza. “They put everything into him, and they are a tight knit family.”
University Police say that they do not have a motive for why the suspect did what he did. However officials did confirm that the suspect was once on the UVA football team, but was no longer on the roster.
Chief Longo with the University Police confirmed that the suspect came to police’s attention this fall, after a comment he made about owning a gun.
He also mentioned that he was involved in a hazing investigation back in February of 2021, where investigators learned about a prior incident involving a concealed weapon violation.
University officials say he never reported that to the institution, and has pending administration charges against him.
As of 11:30 Monday, the suspect, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., was apprehended off of school grounds.
University police say they are still unclear as to what transpired ahead of the shooting, and the relationship Jones had with Perry, Davis, and Chandler.
Coach Cardoza just hopes that this athlete with a love for the arts, his faith, and his family, is never forgotten.
“I think he was more special of a person than he was an athlete, and he was a really good athlete. He was everything you would want a student athlete to be, he was a friend a son,” explained the coach. “If my son grows up to be like D’Sean, Ill be happy.”
Police say there are two other students who were injured because of the shooting. They are both being treated at UVA’s Medical Center. One is in good condition, the other is in critical condition. Officials did not confirm if those two individuals were also part of the football team.
