3 Football Players Killed in University of Virginia Shooting; Suspect in Custody
Police in the mid-Atlantic state of Virginia have arrested a suspect in a shooting at the University of Virginia that left three members of the college's football team dead.
University police said during a news conference Monday that the shooting took place Sunday night on a bus filled with students who were returning from an off-campus trip.
The shooting prompted authorities to lock down the University of Virginia's campus in Charlottesville, telling students and staff to shelter in place for hours as they conducted a search for the suspect.
University President James Ryan identified the suspect as Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a student at the college who had played for U.Va.'s football team in 2018. The suspect has been charged with three counts each of second-degree murder and committing a felony with a firearm.
Ryan told reporters at Monday's news conference that two other students were wounded in the shooting and said one was in critical condition.
In a statement earlier Monday, Ryan said, "This is a traumatic incident for everyone in our community, and we have canceled classes for today. 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," he wrote.
Ryan said authorities did not yet have a "full understanding" of the motive or circumstances surrounding the shooting.
Campus police chief Tim Longo said the suspect was known to campus police after someone alleged he had a weapon in the fall of 2022. Campus police investigated but were not able to confirm Jones had a firearm.
U.S. President Joe Biden and his wife Jill were "mourning with the University of Virginia community after yet another deadly shooting in America," according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
"Too many families across America are bearing the awful burden of gun violence. … We need to enact an assault-weapons ban to get weapons of war off America's streets," Jean-Pierre said in a statement Monday.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin wrote Monday on Twitter, "We had a horrific tragedy overnight at UVA, lives were lost and families changed forever. Due to the diligence and commitment of our law enforcement, the suspect is in custody."
In 2007, a student at Virginia Tech, a university about 240 kilometers away from Charlottesville, carried out the deadliest U.S. school shooting, killing 32 people before killing himself.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.