Editorial: Two years after the University of Virginia's shooting, the report about the tragedy remains secret

The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press Editorial Board, The Virginian-Pilot on Dec 6, 2024

Published in Op Eds

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In the Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”

That’s a fitting argument to apply to the University of Virginia’s withholding of reports into a deadly on-campus shooting in 2022. The university has promised for more than a year to make those documents available but, despite those pledges, still has yet to do so.

All of the commonwealth mourned in response to the tragic events of Nov. 13, 2022. That evening, a bus full of students was returning to the campus in Charlottesville from a field trip to see a performance of “The Ballad of Emmett Till” in Washington, D.C., when a man opened fire on the vehicle.

Three students were killed: 20-year-old Devin Chandler, 22-year-old D’Sean Perry and 20-year old Lavel Davis Jr. All three were members of the Cavaliers football team. Mike Hollins, another member of the team, and UVA student Marlee Morgan were wounded by gunfire.

The university imposed a lockdown for the sprawling campus that lasted 12 hours and misinformation in the immediate aftermath was rampant. However, law enforcement quickly identified a suspect, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a student and former member of the football team. He was arrested around noon the next day in the Richmond area.

As with the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, in which a student killed 32 classmates and instructors in two on-campus buildings, the violence at UVA raised a host of questions that demanded answers.

Following the tragedy in Blacksburg, then-Gov. Tim Kaine commissioned an independent panel of experts in education, law, psychiatry, emergency medicine and homeland security to conduct a thorough review of events. As he said when making the appointments, “The primary purpose is to learn all we can and make recommendations to get better” rather than to assign blame or to find scapegoats for what happened.

The Virginia Tech shooting was the deadliest on-campus violence in United States history. The value of a thorough and transparent investigation was not only to provide answers for the victims, their families, the university community and the larger commonwealth, but to help other institutions learn from mistakes and improve their procedures.

Following the UVA shooting, university officials asked Attorney General Jason Miyares to conduct an independent review, a good and important step. Miyares hired a national law firm to carry out the inquiry and brought former U.S. Attorney Zachary Terwilliger on board to assist.

That work was completed in October 2023 and the report transmitted to university officials.

But it was not released to the public. School officials cited a request from Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley for withholding the report to avoid compromising the criminal case against Jones.

While the public’s right to know is sweeping, that explanation makes sense. But with the criminal case resolved — Jones pleaded guilty last month to three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of malicious wounding and five firearms charges — the reasons for further delay ring hollow.

The Daily Progress newspaper has been the loudest, most persistent voice for transparency. The newspaper requested a copy of the report under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, but was denied. It filed suit but a judge ruled against the paper after, again, Hingeley intervened in the case. The Daily Progress has appealed that ruling, and the case will be heard soon.

UVA now says it will make the report public following Jones’ sentencing in February, but more than two years have passed since the tragedy. If truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, as Jefferson wrote, Virginians are left to wonder why UVA insists on standing in the way.

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