Suspect arrested after shooting leaves 3 University of Virginia football players dead | ABCNL

Join me now ABC News Faith Abube, who lives there in Charlottesville, right there on the University of Virginia campus, so Faith, what else are we learning now about this

suspect

? Nothing about him? How did they find it? All the details. Yes, good afternoon to you, cara, you know? That sigh of relief the police chief was talking about is reverberating across campus here in the middle of a really tough day for UVA in the Charlottesville community. You know the

shooting

suspect

is now in custody 12 hours after last night's horrific

shooting

. You can still There is still an active scene behind me.

The authorities are still here. Gathering evidence. Authorities tell us they received word of that shooting just after 10 o'clock last night. When they arrived, they found multiple victims with gunshot wounds on a bus full of students. I just got back from Washington DC there was a field trip for a class, they went to D.C. to see a play and this was part of the

university

class. It is unclear at this time if the suspect was enrolled in that class and was on the bus in the field. trip or if he was not like he got on the bus in the first place, but three of the victims he allegedly shot did die, two others are still in the hospital, they were injured, one of them is being treated, she is in critical condition, that person is in critical condition and at this time the school has not identified the other two injured victims, but we do know that they have identified the suspect Christopher Jones, as you said, he is a student here at UVA, he turns 23 this week and he is a member or was once a member of the UVA

football

team, but according to the athletic department's website he never actually played in a game this afternoon, we hear he faces several felony charges, including second-degree murder with a gun in commission of his felony and we also hope that investigators as they get more information will add more charges to this, but as far as what we're learning about him, well, police are still figuring out the motive behind the shooting, still We are learning some new details.

About him This apparently is not the first time he has encountered authorities, according to police, it came to the attention of UVA's threat assessment team this fall. He allegedly made a comment about having a gun to a person who was not affiliated with the

university

, but he didn't actually make any threats, according to police, and his roommate never saw him with a gun, so we're not sure. what happened to that case, but there was another alleged hazing incident, the circumstances of which are still unclear at this time, but we are told that the threat assessment team revealed the investigation because they had to close it more because they couldn't really get much cooperation of the suspect.

In this case, the threat assessment team also learned that there was a prior criminal incident involving a concealed weapon violation involving the suspect, this apparently occurred outside of Charlottesville last year. School policy requires the suspect to report an incident like that, but according to police, he did not report this, and of course all of these details will be part of the larger investigation into what happened, why it happened, and whether this could have happened. averted Kira, yes Faith, there's a lot to take in right now and it was pretty notable right there in the middle of that press conference that they found out about the suspect. he was in custody, okay Faith, while you work with your sources and more details, let us know when you have more, we will contact you.

In the meantime, we're bringing in ABC News contributor and former FBI agent Brad Garrett, so Brad, uh, multiple law. law enforcement agencies, uh, the ATF, Virginia State Police, there are many involved in this investigation, so considering the suspect was on the run for over 12 hours, I guess what did he do with the police response? Nobody likes to see the alleged shooter on the loose but 12 hours that's pretty good they must have gotten some good intelligence on how to track them down so look at it this way Cara every time there is a public shooting particularly on a college campus a school public even a business the federal city, county and state teams come together, so the FBI and ATF usually show up to offer a lot of assistance, whatever the local jurisdiction really needs, but they are used to to work together, so start with that, the ability to get the word out to Mr.

Jones' identity of his car and the license plate number that would go to all jurisdictions surrounding Charlottesville. I guess Henrico County isn't too far away. Did he really call the police? It was on his radar through the word that it was. they posted that they did it, I'm going to guess it was a car stop or some version of that and they took him into custody, um, but you know, that shows you that the system and these various jurisdictions can work together because unfortunately we have so many. shootings, so let's talk about the fact that he was already on authorities' radar and was apparently linked to a possible amplification incident among the

football

team.

There were reports that he had a gun. What are you doing? I mean clearly when we heard about his background, in fact, he was on the football team, possibly honor roll, you're surprised he doesn't fit the typical profile at that time we started hearing about the fact that the authorities knew about him and that they were probably there. something to do with hazing and the football team is rebuilding now so we tend to make a mistake of being stereotyped about who is going to commit mass shootings and yes you're right a lot of times we see maybe mental health but certainly an issue. person outwardly I'm going to assume that Mr.

Jones obviously has his own set of problems here anger anger may be uncontrollable anger maybe it's directed towards football maybe not. I don't think it's a coincidence that the people he hurt were involved in football. team that he was apparently kicked off of or just wasn't on it at the time of the shooting, so you know you have to start with that if you look at how little we know about one person, Mr. Jones, some kind of rape in reference to a hidden weapon, uh, maybe another comment from someone who said they had a gun but the person never saw the gun and then this hazing incident, as we both know, could mean and all kinds of things, big deal, it's not big deal, but if you put them all together, I mean what do the authorities do with that.

I'm talking about the number of people who are

arrested

for having weapons that are not registered or that are in a jurisdiction where, if you carry them concealed, it is illegal, you know. It will show, I guess in the criminal record, but that's all the police can do with it, it's not a direct threat, it's a lot like when we started hearing about people online saying they're going to do X, That's what the authorities do. we can do something about it, it's not a perfect system, we miss some of these shooters because of that, but I know we'll have to know more about whether there were indicators of actual aggression, indicators of anger, anger, between Mr.

Jones and the people that they were. shot or maybe even the football team in general, yes there is still a lot we don't know so just look to the future now what are your biggest safety concerns as students at the University of Virginia begin to returning to class, is clearly shaking up the campus. Right now there's no doubt, I mean, it kind of shakes your uh, I guess, sense of comfort. I mean, you go to college, you're usually young, but you know that the college campus itself is like a cocoon, you feel like you feel comfortable there, you feel safe there and this, even though it would seem like a targeted shooting to me, it still makes you will make you feel unsafe at least for a period of time; in other words, someone came onto campus with a gun, a fellow student and fellow students murdered, it's other students, these football

players

, so there's going to be trauma there because I suspect that over an extended period of time, a period of time where they're really going to have to get over it and you know college.

In itself it sounds like you know they are really offering help and will work with these kids to get them to the other side. Hey, this is really a safe place to be and we are here to protect you as best as I and I can. They told me we only saw it for a second, Brad, we just got photos of the three victims, Lavelle Davis Jr, Devin Chandler and DeSean Perry, so those are the names of the three victims that we just got these photos on, again, from left to right. Davis Jr and then Devin Chandler and DeSean Perry, obviously we'll continue to provide more information, learn more about these victims, hopefully more about the alleged shooter Brad as we continue our coverage Brad, thank you so much, thank you for joining me there, hello everyone , George Stephanopoulos.

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