UVa cancels Saturday football game after fatal shooting

The University of Virginia’s football program has canceled its final home game of the regular season in the aftermath of the mass shooting on the school’s campus Sunday night, in which three members of the football team were killed.

The university’s athletic department announced the decision to cancel the football team’s Nov. 19 contest with Coastal Carolina University on Wednesday, adding that ticket refund information to the game will available at a later date. 

“The decision was made following the shooting of five students on Grounds Sunday night,” the school said in a statement. “The incident resulted in the deaths of three members of the UVA team — Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry.”

The university also said that a decision on the football team playing its regular season finale against rival Virginia Tech on Nov. 26 hasn’t been made yet. 

“A decision if Virginia will participate in its final game of the season, a Nov. 26 (Saturday) date against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, has not been made at this time,” the school added. 

A day earlier, the University of Virginia announced the return of normal classes after canceling the last two days of classes in wake of the campus shooting. 

“These have been extraordinarily difficult days for our community,” university President Jim Ryan said in a statement to the school community. “Even in the face of our own grief, I ask that we continue to reach out and extend our support to each other and especially to those who may be struggling the most.”

The news comes as Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a student and former football player at the university, is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday. Authorities said that Jones, who attended a school field trip to Washington, D.C., along with about two dozen others, opened fire after their bus arrived on campus. 

In addition to allegedly killing Chandler, Davis and Perry, Jones is also accused of wounding two others, including another football player, in the shooting.

The 22-year-old was arrested the following day after a manhunt and charged with three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony. 

Christopher Darnell Jones Sr., the father of the suspect, told Norfolk, Va.-based CBS affiliate WTKR in an interview earlier this week that his son was “real paranoid” the last time he visited home and said during the visit that he was getting bullied by schoolmates. 

In separate statements, Virginia’s head football coach Tony Elliott and athletic director Carla Williams expressed their condolences to the football players who were killed in the incident, referring to the three individuals as “bright young men” who had “extremely bright futures.” 

“We lost three talented and bright young men. We will never see what their impact on the world would have been, but we will never forget their impact on us. I miss Lavel, D’Sean and Devin,” Williams said.