Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares announced on Thursday that he will appoint a special counsel to review the events that led to the deadly shooting aboard a school bus that killed three University of Virginia students and how the school assessed the potential threat of the suspected killer.
Miyares’ office will issue a public report when the review is completed, said Victoria LaCivita, a spokesperson for Miyares.
“The Attorney General will work with deliberate speed while ensuring that all necessary resources remain devoted to the criminal investigation being conducted by state and local authorities,” she said in a statement.
Christopher Darnell Jones, Jr. is seen in this mugshot released by the Henrico County Sheriff’s Office, Monday Nov. 14, 2022. Jones is charged with second degree murder in the shooting death of three UVA football players.
(The Henrico County Sheriff’s Office)
The university wrote a letter to Miyares requesting the probe of the school staff and police response to the Sunday shooting in which Christopher Darnell Jones, a University of Virginia ex-football player, is accused of killing three other players on a charter bus upon returning from a class field trip.
“As [the criminal] investigation proceeds, there are many valid questions about the shooting that have yet to be answered and are unlikely to be answered in the course of criminal proceedings,” university officials wrote.
Jones, 23, is being held without bail. He is charged with three counts of second-degree murder in connection to the deaths of active UVA football players Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis and D’Sean Perry, as well as three counts of using a handgun in commission of a felony. On Tuesday, an additional two counts of malicious wounding were added in connection to surviving victims, a UVA football player Michael Hollins Jr. and Marlee Morgan, a sophomore at the university.
Jones has a lengthy criminal history.
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He was arrested in February 2021 in Chesterfield County, Virginia, for a concealed weapons violation. He was convicted in that case on June 10, 2021. At the time of his arrest, there were outstanding warrants for hit-and-run property damage and reckless driving in Petersburg County, among other offenses.
Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
