UVA cancels final home football game on day shooter is due in court [Updated]

Three days after an on-campus shooting took the lives of three Virginia football players, the university canceled the Cavaliers’ final home game of the season, which would’ve been Saturday against nationally-ranked Coastal Carolina. Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry, and Devin Chandler were the three killed in the mass shooting, with two others being wounded. One is an unidentified football player.

The cancellation comes within hours of when the shooting’s suspect, 22-year-old former UVA football player Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., is due in court for his first hearing. Local police and campus leadership said Jones was on a school field trip Sunday evening to see a play in Washington D.C., about two hours north of Charlottesville, Va. When the bus returned to campus, police said Jones started shooting. Jones allegedly fled the scene and wasn’t taken into police custody until Monday morning.

Jones will face three counts of second-degree murder, two counts of malicious wounding, and additional charges. Updated Wednesday Nov. 16, 2022 at 11:38 a.m.: He was denied bond. A 2021 concealed weapons charge was also revealed at the hearing.

Classes at Virginia also resumed on Wednesday, with the Cavaliers currently scheduled to play their final game of the season next Saturday on the road against Virginia Tech. Virginia is 3-7 and not eligible for bowl consideration. Jones was a one-semester walk-on at Virginia in 2018 and none of the shooting’s victims played for the Cavaliers at that time.