The University of Virginia has settled with the families of five victims of a November 2022 mass shooting that occurred after a class outing to Washington, D.C. The university will pay $2 million each to the families of football players Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry and another $3 million to be divided between two other students who were wounded.
“The settlements approved today is [sic] just one small step on this terrible road that these families are on,” Elliott Buckner, a lawyer for Perry’s family, told media at the courthouse Friday, reports the The Daily Progress.
However, Buckner urged UVa to release a state-commissioned report that delved into the University’s failure to follow up on warning signs that Christopher Darnell Jones, the alleged shooter, was a potential menace to the university community.
“The most important thing for these families, the thing that will really bring them closure, is to know what happened to their sons,” said Buckner. “It is time for UVa and the commonwealth to release the report.”
After promising to make the report public soon after its release by the Attorney General’s office, the Ryan administration reversed course and said it would withhold the document until after Jones’ trial, which is scheduled for next year.
— JAB