United States: three members of a college soccer team shot dead, suspect arrested
Steph Deschamps / November 15, 2022
Three members of the University of Virginia (UVA) soccer team in the eastern United States were killed Sunday night in a shootout in which the suspect, a former team member, was arrested, authorities said Monday at a news conference.
Three members of the University of Virginia soccer team in the eastern United States were killed Sunday night in a shooting, and the suspect, a former team member, was arrested, authorities said Monday at a news conference.
Two other students were wounded, one of them seriously, said the president of the university, Jim Ryan.
Local Police Chief Timothy Longo added that the suspect, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr, a 22-year-old college student, was arrested and charged with murder.
He was arrested in a Richmond suburb about 100 miles from the University of Virginia's (UVA) main campus in Charlottesville, according to Henrico County police.
A UVA team tasked with investigating students who may pose a security threat had previously been notified about Jones Jr. after a report that he had a gun, but no weapon was recovered, Timothy Longo said.
The shooting occurred on a bus as the students were returning from a field trip to a play, said Speaker Jim Ryan.
The campus, which was sealed off overnight and patrolled by patrols and helicopters in search of the suspect before his arrest, has now reopened, Ryan said. Classes for the day have been canceled.
The White House on Monday expressed its condolences to the families of the victims, condemning "a senseless shooting" and calling on Congress to tighten gun laws.
Too many families across America must bear the terrible burden of gun violence," wrote Executive Branch spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre in a statement. "We must ban assault rifles to get these weapons of war off America's streets," she continued.
"This is a day of untold sadness," Tim Ryan said in a statement. "The entire university is in mourning this morning."
He called on those who "need help" to call on the resources deployed by the university, including psychological support.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, referring on Twitter to a "horrific tragedy" in which the lives of families were "forever changed," praised the work of law enforcement that led to the arrest.
School shootings are common in the United States, and each time reopen the debate on better gun control.
In April 2007, such a tragedy had already struck Virginia: an unbalanced student had shot 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, before committing suicide.
Virginia's Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said Monday on Twitter that he was "deeply moved to learn that more Virginia residents have been devastated by gun violence. »
The emotion caused by this tragedy was further amplified by the announcement of the discovery on Sunday of the lifeless bodies of four students from another institution, the University of Idaho (northwest).
"It is with great sadness that I share with you the information the university was notified of today about the deaths of four University of Idaho students who lived off campus and were allegedly victims of homicide," said University of Idaho President Scott Green in a statement.
Police in the city of Moscow, where the bodies were found, have opened an investigation.
Law enforcement, however, does not consider the situation to pose a "direct threat," Green said.
A third incident added to tensions Monday morning, when Oakland University, near Detroit, Michigan (north), asked its students and staff not to go to its campus, where police were looking for two armed suspects, before indicating a few hours later that everything was back to normal.