Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a former football player himself, is accused of killing three University of Virginia football players and wounding two others, and just like in so many similar incidents, the suspect was known to police prior to Sunday night’s shooting.
Local officials held a news conference on Monday and learned that Jones, 22, was arrested following a 13-hour manhunt, with UVA Police Chief Tim Longo saying the UVA student was involved in a “criminal incident that saw him in possession of a concealed weapon.”
“Give me a moment to thank God and breathe a sigh of relief.”
Watch the moment UVA Police Chief Tim Longo found out the suspected shooter was in custody. @13NewsNow pic.twitter.com/6nSRKl56BB
— Dan Kennedy 11Alive (@11DanKennedy) November 14, 2022
“Because I want to be transparent with you, I want you to know that … Mr. Jones came to the attention of the University of Virginia’s threat assessment team in the fall of 2022 because he was involved in a hazing investigation of some sort,” Longo said.
“I don’t know the facts and circumstances of that investigation. I know it was eventually closed due to witnesses who would not cooperate with the process,” he added. “But through the course of the threat assessment team’s investigation, they received information that Mr. Jones had made a comment about possessing a gun to a person that was unaffiliated with the university.”
All three of the UVA shooting victims are football players:
Devin Chandler (from Virginia Beach)
D'Sean Perry
Lavel Davis pic.twitter.com/GgYFzDwP5G
— Dan Kennedy 11Alive (@11DanKennedy) November 14, 2022
The police chief said that a person who does not go to or work for the university reported back in September that Jones made a comment about having a gun. That individual apparently did not see a gun and Longo cited a student affairs office investigation to say that Jones’ roommate did not report seeing a gun.
Discipline was pending over the incident because Jones had not reported the incident as required by the school.
“He’s required as a student at University of Virginia to report that and he never did, so the University has taken appropriate administrative charges through the University’s judiciary council and that matter is still pending adjudication,” Longo explained. “I’ll try to do better next time.”
Jones faces three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony in connection to Sunday night’s shooting, which took place in a parking garage as a bus returned from a field trip.
A motive is unclear at this time, but the suspect’s father, Chris Jones Sr., told WTVR that his son was “real paranoid … about something. He wouldn’t tell me everything.”
“He said some people were picking on him or whatever, he didn’t know how to handle it,” the father added. “I just told him to just go to school, don’t pay them no mind, do what you got to do, you only got one more year.”
Republished with permission from American Wire News Service.
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Tom@bizpacreview.com
The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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