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The suspect in a shooting at the University of Virginia that killed three members of the football team was taken into custody Monday, more than 13 hours after he allegedly gunned down fellow students in a bus as they returned from a school field trip, authorities said.
University President Jim Ryan and law enforcement officials were in the middle of a late morning news conference when they received word that Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. had been apprehended.
Two other students were wounded in the shooting late Sunday night, which happened near a campus parking garage as a charter bus full of students returned from seeing a play in Washington, D.C., for a class field trip. Ryan said one of the students was in critical condition and the other student was in good condition at a local hospital.
The shooting touched off an intense manhunt, with authorities ordering students to shelter in place and conducting a building-by-building and grounds search of the campus. Students stayed in place for more than 12 hours until the order was lifted late Monday morning.
When the news conference began, university police chief Timothy Longo Sr. said officials were “reasonably confident” the shooter was no longer on school grounds and urged the public to call 911 immediately if they saw him or the black SUV he was believed to be driving. Longo then received word that Jones had been apprehended.
“Just give me a moment to thank God, breathe a sigh of relief,” he said.
Longo said police have obtained arrest warrants for Jones charging him with three counts of murder and three counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony. He said the bus filled with students had just returned to campus when the shooting began.
“Someone among them chose to do an act of violence,” he said.
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