UVa’s Investigators Missed an Arsenal in Shooter’s On-Grounds Dorm Room

UVa President James Ryan. Courtesy of the University of Virginia

by James C. Sherlock

The Daily Progress just reported:

The student charged in the shooting deaths of three University of Virginia football players had a semi-automatic rifle, pistol, ammunition, magazines and a device used to make bullets fire faster in his on-Grounds dorm room, according to a search warrant inventory that the Daily Progress obtained.

What the State Police investigator “found in the room of accused triple murder Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. might have filled a duffel.” In an “on-Grounds dorm room.”

The TAT investigators interviewed his roommate. But the shooter refused to cooperate.  

So the University was helpless?

Anyone still want to talk about the thoroughness of the Threat Assessment Team (TAT) investigation and the actions of the members of that team after the investigation was over?

I have exposed those “efforts” in a series of articles to this point, culminating in tracing the bureaucratic structures that let this happen.

That bureaucracy will fight like trapped bobcats, looking for a mid-level scapegoat. They are having closed meetings as I write this.

They are likely to try to sacrifice the police chief. Because he has been the only one of them to man up. And he is not a direct report to President Ryan.

But three young men are dead.

I am not nearly done with that bureaucracy and its leader.


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Comments

71 responses to “UVa’s Investigators Missed an Arsenal in Shooter’s On-Grounds Dorm Room”

  1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
    Eric the half a troll

    And you all say we don’t have a gun problem…

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Guns? What guns?

      1. Oops.

        Reply moved to correct commenter…

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          Well, that’s no fun! Half the time it might be accidentally funny, and the other half, I’ll just think you’re in the rye.

          1. Would that make him the Catcher in the Rye? Or maybe the Packer in the Rye, or…

          2. More like The Drinker of the Rye.

          3. More like The Drinker of the Rye.

          4. More like The Drinker of the Rye.

    2. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      That’s really NOT his problem…

      “The TAT investigators interviewed his roommate. But the shooter refused to cooperate.”

      To him, there are no 4th and 5th Amendments. His last 3 articles are the most authoritarian of any on this blog. “Sit the subject on the bed and rifle through his drawers.” Drawers? Given his religious background, those too.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar

        Clearly the law needs to be changed so all potential witnesses and the shooter would have been “forced” to “cooperate”. Law & order made “right”!

      2. I have a question for you:

        Shouldn’t the word “shall” and the phrase “shall not” have the same meaning in the 2nd Amendment as in the 4th and 5th?

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          One would think. But the Bill of Rights is not for the citizenry to interpret.

          1. Yeah, most citizens are not practiced at finding emanations and penumbras in clearly worded sentences…

          2. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Well, neither is the SCOTUS, but they get to.

      3. So you are saying that gun free campuses are completely unenforceable, even when authorities are informed of offenders well in advance of violence?

        If that’s the case, then you are admitting that gun free zones have zero deterrence for mass murderers, but prevent lawful person from defending themselves.

        I think more could have been done, and would ague that anyone who believes in keeping guns off campuses should be supporting the legitimate inquiry into what happened here.

      4. Is it a violation of the 4th Amendments to have your bags and person examined at the airport?

        Is it a violation of the 5th to be questioned at the airport, or when entering a courthouse?

        The shooter need not be required to submit to a search, or otherwise cooperate with a legitimate investigation based on a complain. He could leave the dorm and get housing elsewhere, and perhaps leave college.

        But what appears to have happened is that he blew off the investigation without consequence. At the very least he could have been asked to leave the dormitory and not allowed to go on field trips. Instead, it appears that nothing at all was done and 3 students are dead.

        You’re okay with that?

    3. I cannot speak for others, but the only gun problem I have is figuring out what I’m going to buy next…

      😉

      1. I have that problem, plus two more – paying for them and explaining to my wife why I need yet another gun.

  2. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Is the TAT empowered to arrest? Are they LEOs? Do they have the authority to conduct warrantless searches? Could they obtain a warrant even if they wanted to? Can they take a paint scrapper to a sign? Kick in a door? Demand answers as to why she painted the “F*** UVa”? Or will they be censured? Oh wait, I just got off topic.

    Authoritarian much?

  3. LarrytheG Avatar

    The VSP still had an open investigation on this guy over background checks and guns purchases. Never closed.

    So a question, the VSP executed a search warrant. Is that something he TAT could have/should have done? How about the UVA police?

    Sherlock in on a mission here and I’m not sure we’re getting the straight up plain facts of the entire issue. Call me skeptical.

  4. Christopher Darnell Jones Jr is sounding more like the poster boy for the NRA who wants to permit guns on college campuses along with open and concealed carry on campuses.

    1. Matt Adams Avatar

      The NRA has lots of flaws, them wanting firearms in the hands of someone who shouldn’t isn’t one of them. I can make the assumption the only reason you mentioned them, is because it’s a talking point you’ve often heard. Just for your edification, they aren’t the only gun lobby and certainly aren’t the one lobbying Congress regarding laws.

      1. The NRA and others have pushed for constitutional carry without exceptions. College students are adults and according to the NRA, should be able to possess and carry fire arms with them at all times. That is why all of the political conservatives trying to blame UVA for the shooting makes no sense.

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          You cannot win this thread. He knows all.

          1. On this subject he clearly knows infinitely more than James Bond wannabe aka Teddy007.

          2. Matt Adams Avatar

            It’s pretty easy to be knowledge on the subject when one doesn’t gain ones knowledge from partisan talking points.

            As for NN, you’re talking about someone who claimed they surrendered a shotgun to the ATF on a Military Post in the 60’s in Europe.

            Problems w/ that statement:

            1) ATF didn’t exist till 1972
            2) They have no jurisdiction on Military Posts, especially when they are in Europe.

          3. He can’t win it by misrepresenting others’ positions on issues, that is for sure.

          4. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Or at all. One could, I suppose, bring down a Jefferson serpine wall by finding the correct pitch of “Om” long before the most cogent argument could succeed against goalposts on Teflon®

          5. Okay, but as far as gun rights go, my goal posts move very little if at all. I have recently softened my stance on red-flag laws a bit because there seems to be so many more crazy people out there than there used to be. I still think there are constitutional issues which need to be addressed and such laws are open to being abused by vindictive people, but I think correctly applied they may be able to do some good. However, as far as the rights of law-abiding citizens go, I’m not bending.

            Also, if you carefully read the thread which has developed on this issue you will notice that I am not the commenter who keeps dodging, weaving, and avoiding questions.

          6. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Wait. I was warning him about Matt.

          7. Oh. The comment was a response to mine, so I assumed it was for me.

            Yeah, I know, assumptions, right?

        2. Matt Adams Avatar

          Again, the NRA has lots of faults but they don’t call for people who shouldn’t have firearms to have them. Just because you double down, doesn’t make your statement anymore fact.

          “Constitutional carry allows anyone who is legally allowed to posses a firearm to carry that firearm without a permit from the state. It will not affect previously issued permits to carry and allows those who still wish to obtain a permit in order to carry in states recognizing Georgia permits to do so. It also does not allow anyone prohibited under state or federal law from possessing a firearm to carry a firearm”

          I suggest you learn what a “Constitutional Carry” is and then speak, until that occurs, everything thing you say is just your Standard BS.

          PS: I also wouldn’t take advice from the resident drag Queen, who swore he surrendered a firearm to an Agency in Europe, before it existed and on a premise where they had no jurisdiction.

        3. The NRA and others have pushed for constitutional carry without exceptions.

          That is complete and utter bullsh!t. The NRA has never, ever, pushed to allow criminals to have firearms.

          PS – Just in case you missed it yesterday, I am not one of the “conservatives trying to blame UVA” for these murders. I blame Christopher Darnell Jones and only Christopher Darnell Jones for these murders.

          1. that is not what is written. However, the NRA believe everyone who can legal own a gun should be able to carry it virtually anywhere including schools, hospitals, and government buildings. The NRA is against red flag laws which that reduce to being nothing more than gun grabbing. The murderer at UVA had not been convicted of any crime and thus, there was no reaon to deny him a gun purchase.

          2. I quoted you, so it IS what was written. I also know what “without exception” means.

            And yes, the NRA opposes red-flag laws, but Virginia passed one anyway, so their position on the issue is irrelevant to these murders. And how much good did Virginia’s red-flag law do in this situation anyway?

            Finally, please tell me specifically why you think law-abiding citizens should not be able to carry firearms for self-protection. I carry one every single day. Not only have I never used it in public, I have never brandished it, or even drawn it from its holster in public – because I have not needed to.

            I approach carrying a the same way I approach wearing a seatbelt in my car, or wearing a helmet when I ride my motorcycle. It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it – and it’s even better to strive to avoid situations which may result in needing it.

          3. I would attach strict liability to anyone who carries a gun in public (or anywhere else). The meme used to justify carrying a weapon is that an armed society is a polite society even though the U.S. disproves that data. And if one is so scared of society that one cannot leave home without a gun, there are many places one cannot go including flying on an airplane or go to a Smithsonian museum in DC. It is amazing that the people who claim that they need a gun to feel safe fear urban areas the most.

          4. One more thing: What liability could I possibly incur by simply carrying a weapon? And I’m already responsible for any damage I cause if I use a gun in public, so your statement makes no sense.

          5. The meme used to justify carrying a weapon is that an armed society is a polite society

            Not correct. I don’t know anyone who uses that as justification for carrying a firearm – mostly because responsible gun owners know that impoliteness is not justification for shooting someone.

            Furthermore, I told you why I carry a firearm, so your insulting statements about ‘fear ‘and being ‘scared’ have no effect on me.

            But don’t worry, despite your attempts at insulting me, if we’re ever in the same place and someone attacks you I will do what I can to help you.

          6. The law provides “strict liability” for anyone who misuses a gun in public (or anywhere else). Of course that presumes prosecutors will actually charge the offense.

            “It is amazing that the people who claim that they need a gun to feel safe fear urban areas the most.”

            Not so “amazing”. Willie Sutton said when he was asked why he robbed banks. “Because that’s where they keep the money”. For urban areas, that’s where the crime is.

            Edit: Correct Horton to Sutton.

          7. It was Willie Sutton who robbed banks. Willie Horton was the murdered used against Dukakis in 1992.

          8. Oops, you’re right, my bad. I’ll edit my post. Thanks for proofing for me.

          9. I’m the last person anyone should depend on to be an editor. But Willie Sutton was mentioned in a podcast i heard yesterday.

    2. Although impossible to diagnose from a distance, Jones looks more like a poster boy for the tragedy of young adult onset schizophrenia.

      He was clearly a very bright kid, a member of the National Honor Society. Our institutions have profoundly failed people with severe mental illness. As with Jones, Cho, “Gus” Deeds, et al that sometimes bleeds over into tragedy for others.

      Your concern might be more useful if focused on improving our institutional responses to people with severe mental health issues than ranting about the NRA.

      I’ve had major differences with Sherlock, but here he has specific experience with the TAT at UVa and their failure to perform appropriately. Seems he’s got a pretty clear focus on where UVa failed to protect the community, or to help Jones, or to avert this tragedy.

      1. Universities have always done poorly with students with mental illness. That is why Cal Tech and MIT used to brag about their high suicide rates. When the universities stopped being loco parentis, then universities gave up really caring about mental illness. When the students are adults, then the students are responsible for their own mental illness. And TAT falls into what conservatives would see as gun grabbing red flag laws.

        1. After the first sentence your comment is so profoundly wrong in so many places it is jaw dropping. How have you become so deluded?

        2. But Virginia has a red-flag law, and UVA has TAT, so it does not matter how conservatives “see” it.

          I’ll ask again, how much good did Virginia’s red-flag law do this past Sunday night in Charlottesville?

    3. Although impossible to diagnose from a distance, Jones looks more like a poster boy for the tragedy of young adult onset schizophrenia.

      He was clearly a very bright kid, a member of the National Honor Society. Our institutions have profoundly failed people with severe mental illness. As with Jones, Cho, “Gus” Deeds, et al that sometimes bleeds over into tragedy for others.

      Your concern might be more useful if focused on improving our institutional responses to people with severe mental health issues than ranting about the NRA.

      I’ve had major differences with Sherlock, but here he has specific experience with the TAT at UVa and their failure to perform appropriately. Seems he’s got a pretty clear focus on where UVa failed to protect the community, or to help Jones, or to avert this tragedy.

  5. DJRippert Avatar

    This is just another example of why incompetent college administrators ought to leave criminal justice to the criminal justice professionals.

    Let the police do the police work and let the courts try the cases.

    The mindless arrogance of those people running higher education never ceases to amaze me.

    Now three young men are dead and two more are injured.

    1. LarrytheG Avatar

      More partisan blather. This was a VSP gun issue long before it was a UVA issue.

      The “mindless arrogance” is the fools who are hell bent on going after UVA even as the facts say that this guy failed a background check then passed it somehow as the VSP still had an open investigation on him.

      Why is this not the more common issue of someone who got guns who should not have with the partisans ignoring that and going after UVA instead?

      1. walter smith Avatar
        walter smith

        Larry – I thought you worked for, or were related to, Dr. St. Fau(x)ci…
        Is there some familial tie between the Sainted Doctor and Jim Ryan?
        Or, maybe more likely, you just mindlessly defend all instruments of societal destruction because they are part of your team?

        Oh, now background checks? Guess what? People who want to do evil will do evil. (Look at the unhinged FBI and DOJ acting as the Gestapo for the brain dead President. Who is pulling the strings? Who will pull the Fetterbot’s strings?)

        There was a failure here. Why? What were the “root causes?” (And one of my favorites that you constantly and stupidly and routinely and wrongly defend is illegitimacy) What kind of broken home, if any, did the shooter come from? Was that part of the problem? Did UVA’s constant roiling of racial grievance contribute to him snapping? Is it unfair to ask?
        Since it makes your team look bad, you and the rest of the Crickets have to do your mindless chirping.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar

          I see Dr. Fauci as an 80 year old doctor who has dedicated his life to public health.

          There are idiots in this world who think otherwise and grovel in conspiracy theories and name calling disparities.

          Wacadoodles, yes.

          In terms of the “failure”, “failures” happen all the time to all institutions private and public.

          What is your point?

          That somehow when there is a failure in govt, it means that govt should go away because it’s incompetent and corrupt?

          You got to get a handle on this Walter. You’re messed up on this guy.

          We have murders and mass killings on a regular basis in this country.

          Geeze Walter…. get a grip!

          1. walter smith Avatar
            walter smith

            Not even your A game Larry. You can propagandize better than that! I wasn’t ranting against the government. I was wondering why you seem to be so vociferously defending Jim Ryan, which is outside of your normal bailiwick of defending the Dem party and Dr. St. Fau(x)ci. Now, no doubt Jim Ryan is a true progressive, so maybe it is just you defending your team…
            But I can be fair. I am fair. I just want equal application to all. UVA deserves scrutiny here.
            My bones to pick with UVA are the intellectual monoculture. UVA Law is a disgrace compared to when I went there. The professors actually cared about due process and civil rights. What has been done to the J6 defendants would be, rightly, reviled. The abuse of the FBI for political reasons. The weaponization of the DOJ. It kind of make the Libs of yesteryear look hypocritical because now it seems all the abuses are OK when they do it, like McCarthyist DEI statements.
            Eternal principles are eternal principles. UVA has adopted moral relativism, not the pursuit of truth, and the kids are suffering for it.

  6. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Elizabeth Theranos — “3 hours ago — The fallen Silicon Valley star faces up to 15 years in prison for defrauding investors in her blood-testing company.”

    My money is on less than 24 months with over half suspended and at most 5 years probation. Pretty little blonds girls in America…

    1. She got over 11 years – 135 months, none suspended. How much was the wager for?

      If the FTX guy gets about twice that maybe we can begin to believe in the justice system again. Funny the Dems aren’t giving back any of the $40M he showered them with for the mid terms.

      Garland got it half right today. He needed to name a second special prosecutor for the Biden crime family, Joe, Jim and Hunter. Curiously that didn’t happen for corrupt Dem political families in America…

  7. LarrytheG Avatar

    The narrative seems to be that the TATs are equivalent to campus police or even the State Police with the implication that they have the same powers and resources available – ergo – therefore they have primary responsibility for accessing threats.

    If they were/are , then are they supposed to be notified when campus police and VSP encounter students during the course of criminal justice activities?

    Can the Tat, for instance, obtain search warrants or query the gun registration databases?

    Think beyond UVA. Think about the other public universities and colleges in Va. Are they supposed to have Tats that are the equivalent of police in terms of powers and resources?

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      If you have been following along, you will note that there are members of the TAT who are police.

    2. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      If you have been following along, you will note that there are members of the TAT who are police.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar

        They are but so are a bunch of others who are not police.

        It’s a “board” more than it is a police agency.

        How about an honest and objective discussion here on how and where the Tat “fits in” and how it working with campus police and VSP – things can still fall between the cracks?

        On the merits – get the partisan idiocy out of it.

        1. walter smith Avatar
          walter smith

          Says the author and mindless repeater of partisan idiocy.
          Every school has this – by Statute.
          This one appears to have failed.
          I won’t say Jim Ryan is at fault, for now. A messed up kid did something evil. Holding Ryan responsible for the shooter is wrong, sort of like judging all people who lived in the age of slavery for when they were born (AHEM!).
          But, it is fair to understand how this kid slipped through, especially when you consider the fraternities busted for renting tables 2 days prior to official rush, or the Covid mask and lockdown Nazis (they liked to bust the fraternities and the lax players).
          Which violations were more dangerous to “community” safety?

          1. LarrytheG Avatar

            Geeze Walter, part of this sounds almost reasonable and fair… good gawd!

          2. walter smith Avatar
            walter smith

            Then I missed the mark!

          3. You can delegate authority to act, but you can never delegate responsibility for what happens in areas under your control.

            Ryan runs UVa. This is on his watch.

  8. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
    f/k/a_tmtfairfax

    Why no application under the Red Flag law?

    UVA’s Professor Richard Bonnie, who is director of UVA’s Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy and an architect of Red Flag laws, discussed those laws in connection with shootings in New York and Texas. Among his remarks are the following.

    “Could you talk more about red-flag laws and what role they might have played in these cases?”

    “Red-flag laws are clearly needed in the 30 states that do not already have them. There seems little doubt that the Uvalde shooter worried his peers in the days preceding the massacre and that they might have been worried enough to seek an intervention from the school authorities or the police if such an opportunity had been available under Texas law and known to them. The story is less clear in New York, where a red-flag law had been enacted in 2019 and where the shooter had exhibited warning signs in the months preceding the attack in Buffalo. The post-mortem investigation in that case may yield some lessons about what a concerned citizen, classmate or co-worker can do if they see what may be red flags.

    “One of the problems that we have in these situations is the general disinclination that many of us usually have about interfering in other people’s lives. Even if we’re worried, we’re uncertain about the right thing to do. If the state enacts a red-flag law, then it must also launch a public education campaign about why citizens should use it.”

    https://www.law.virginia.edu/news/202205/architect-red-flag-laws-reflects-recent-shootings#:~:text=Richard%20Bonnie%20is%20the%20Harrison%20Foundation%20Professor%20of,to%20be%20a%20danger%20to%20themselves%20or%20others.

    So, why didn’t UVA use the Red Flag law based on what it know?

    1. LarrytheG Avatar

      Why didn’t the Virginia State Police do that?

      1. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
        f/k/a_tmtfairfax

        The City of C’ville Police or anyone? The problem is that we see an approach widely touted as an important way to save lives by using a new law, supported by many people irrespective of their overall views toward firearms, that provides a way, with appropriate facts, to remove firearms and prevent new and legal firearms purchases by someone found by a court to present a substantial risk to himself or others wasn’t used.

        Given the history of gun violence at UVA and the key role Professor Bonnie played in bringing Red Flag laws into being, it seems incredible that UVA did not go to court. In the forthcoming lawsuits by the families of the deceased and wounded against UVA, it will most certainly be very difficult for UVA to provide a compelling reason why it did not go to court under the Red Flag law.

        At the scene of an incident where the victim is not breathing and needs CPR, assume on site are bystanders, police and EMTs but no one starts CPR. Who would have the greatest duty to perform CPR? The EMT, of course. UVA clearly had the greatest duty to use the Red Flag law.

  9. I generally support the restriction of guns on college campuses, provided they don’t prevent off duty police officers from carrying.

    Like many other choices, the decision to restrict lawful carry has consequences. If lawfully permitted citizens are prevented from having the means to defend themselves, then the institution must:

    1 Enforce the prohibition
    2 Take greater responsibility for everyone’s safety

    UVA failed on both counts. Instead of enforcing trivial microaggressions, they should have prioritized the potential for actual violence.

  10. 1) Two guns is not an arsenal.

    2) The TAT investigators interviewed his roommate.

    The roommate said he never saw a gun. Unless this roommate is blind, I think he is lying. Rifles are not exactly huge, but they are too large to effectively hide one in the [relative] close quarters of a dorm room, in my opinion.

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