External review of 2022 shooting to be released
UVA said it is set to release an October 2023 report about the 2022 shooting on Grounds that left three football players dead and two other students seriously injured.
Copies of the report are already in the hands of the families of the three murder victims—Devin Chandler (Col class of ’24), Lavel Davis Jr. (Col class of ’24) and D’Sean Perry (Col class of ’23), along with those of the two students who were injured, football player Michael Hollins Jr. (Col class of ’23) and Marlee Morgan (Col class of ’25). UVA has said they’ll be given time to review the information and meet with officials before the documents are made public by mid-March.
“The University will prioritize providing each of the families with the appropriate time needed to process the reports but also respects the broader desire of the community to receive them,” according to a UVA statement on the release.
The shooting took place at around 10:15 p.m. Nov. 13, 2022, near the Culbreth Road parking garage, after a class field trip to Washington, D.C. As the bus parked near the garage, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a student at the time, opened fire and then fled. The shooting prompted a 12-hour lockdown across Grounds as law enforcement searched for Jones. He was eventually arrested near Richmond, about 80 miles from UVA.
Days after the shooting, President James E. Ryan (Law class of ’92) and then-Rector Whittington W. Clement (Col class of ’70, Law class of ’74) asked the Virginia attorney general to appoint special counsel to review what happened.
In December 2022, Jason S. Miyares, the state AG, appointed two law firms to conduct the reviews. They completed their work in October 2023.
But UVA has delayed the release of the report for more than a year, citing attorney-client privilege and, later, the criminal proceedings against Jones. However, in November, Jones pleaded guilty to three charges of first-degree murder, two charges of aggravated malicious wounding and five firearms charges in a court hearing in Albemarle County Circuit Court.
Jones was initially set to be sentenced in early February, but that hearing was delayed until November. In mid-February, UVA announced that Albemarle County Commonwealth Attorney James M. Hingeley (Law class of ’76) had withdrawn his concern that releasing the report would influence the criminal proceedings.
Not all of the report will be released. Portions will be redacted to comply with federal student privacy regulations and “sensitive public safety information,” according to a UVA statement.
Last May, UVA agreed in mediation to a $9 million settlement, allocating $2 million each to the families of Chandler, Davis and Perry, and a total of $3 million to Hollins and Morgan, which is the maximum permitted under the commonwealth’s risk management plan.
