UVA must pay $9 million for shooting that killed 3 football players and injured 2 students

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The University of Virginia will pay $9 million as part of a settlement related to a 2022 campus shooting that killed three football players and injured two students, a lawyer representing some of the victims and their families said Friday.

The Charlottesville school will pay the families of the three deceased students $2 million each, the maximum amount allowed under Virginia law, said Kimberly Wald, an attorney with Miami-based Haggard Law.

Wald represents the estate of D’Sean Perry. The other two deceased students were Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr.

The university will pay a total of $3 million to the two injured students, Mike Hollins, a fourth member of the football team, and Marlee Morgan, who also represents Wald.

The settlement was negotiated out of court and not the result of a lawsuit, Wald said. However, any settlement in Virginia must be approved by a judge. The settlement with UVA was approved Friday afternoon by a judge in Albemarle County District Court.

The agreements were also approved by Virginia Governor Glenn Younkin and the state’s Attorney General Jason Miyares, the university said in a statement.

UVA Rector Robert Hardie and President Jim Ryan said in the statement that the lives of the three students were “tragically cut short” and that the young men were “always present in our thoughts.”

“We will always remember the impact Devin, Lavel and D’Sean had on our community, and we are grateful for the moments they spent in our presence, strengthening UVA through their time in the classroom and on the football field,” the statement said.

Police said Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a UVA student and former member of the university’s football team, committed the shooting. The incident occurred as he and others were returning to campus on a charter bus from a theater trip in Washington, authorities said.

The violence, which broke out near a parking garage, sparked panic and a 12-hour lockdown on campus until the suspect was caught.

Days after the shooting, university leaders called for an outside investigation to examine UVA’s security policies and procedures, its response to the violence and its previous efforts to assess the potential threat posed by the student who was ultimately charged. University officials acknowledged that he had previously been on the radar of the university’s threat assessment team.

The murder charge against Jones was upgraded from second-degree murder to aggravated murder in 2023. His trial is scheduled for January.