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 $2 million each to the families of the three deceased students, said Kimberly Wald, an attorney with the Miami-based law firm Haggard Law, which is representing the estate of D’Sean Perry. The other two deceased students were Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr.

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

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 eventually 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.