Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a former University of Virginia football player, has been arrested by the police as the major suspect in the murder of three football players.
Two other people were injured in the incident, which occurred late Sunday at the school’s main campus in Charlottesville as a bus returned from a class field trip, school officials said.
According to The Associated Press, the bus full of students was arriving back on campus after a field trip to see a play, when gunfire erupted near the parking garage around 10:15 p.m.
Jones Jr. faces three charges of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony, UVA Police Chief Timothy Longo Sr. told reporters Monday morning as an hourslong manhunt came to an end and authorities lifted a campus lockdown order.
Jones was arrested without incident around 11 a.m. ET about 80 miles east of Charlottesville in Henrico County, the county police agency said in a statement. He was pulled over while driving, a law enforcement source told CNN.
University of Virginia (UVA) president Jim Ryan identified the three Cavaliers football players who were shot and killed during a news conference Monday morning: junior receiver Lavel Davis Jr. of Dorchester, South Carolina; junior receiver Devin Chandler of Huntersville, North Carolina; and junior defensive end/linebacker D’Sean Perry of Miami.
Ryan told reporters that the two wounded students were hospitalized; one is in critical condition and the other is in good condition. He did not identify the students.
“This is a sad, shocking and tragic day for our UVA community,” Ryan said. “Let me say how deeply sorry I am for the victims and for their family and friends.”
