The University of Virginia family – current students, faculty and employees, alums and our families, fans of the athletics teams – is grieving today, and will be for some time to come.
We grieve for three young men – Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry – who lost their lives in a senseless mass shooting on Grounds last night.
We grieve for their families – their parents, siblings, extended family, friends, former and current coaches, teachers, professors.
We grieve for those who had to witness the scene – classmates trapped on a bus as one of their own fired, police, fire and EMTs who responded to the scene, doctors and nurses at UVA Hospital who did what they could.
We grieve for their teammates, who are too young to have to bury three of their own.
We grieve for each other, because this kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen on our hallowed Grounds, isn’t supposed to happen anywhere.
And we grieve with each other, because what else can we do.
We gather regularly on Grounds for football games, basketball games, other athletics contests, for formal events like reunions, for informal walks down the Lawn to reminisce.
We rallied together in 2017 when white supremacists tried to use our Grounds to spew hate, and told them where to go, and how to get there.
And we celebrated together in 2019 when our men’s basketball team won its first national championship, and we admire the banner hanging in the rafters every time we step inside JPJ.
And now we share this.
The numbers 11-13-22 and 1-15-41 will forever be etched in our forever broken hearts, alongside 5-3-10 and 1, the numbers associated with another senseless tragedy, the 2010 murder of UVA lacrosse player Yeardley Love.
As with that awful, awful story, what we’re trying to process today will never make sense, though we will continue to try to make sense of it.
Why?
We will never know, even if the suspect, Christopher Darnell Jones, who, and this is also hard to process, that he is also one of us, as was George Huguely, who was convicted in the murder of Yeardley Love, tries to explain to us why.
I’m not sure that it even matters to try to know why, because knowing why doesn’t bring people back.
It can, yes, help us maybe try to prevent the next tragedy, and that’s important, to keep more families from having to endure what three more families are having to endure today, and forever more after today.
I’m seeing a lot of people on social media reminding themselves and the rest of us to hug people you love and tell them you love them, and I want to echo that.
I’d add that it’s important to be on the lookout for yourself or those around you who are having a hard time processing what’s going on around us right now.
If you or someone you know needs help, there is help there.
For current UVA students, you can call Counseling and Psychological Services at 434-243-5150, 24 hours a day.
Information about CAPS is available on the Student Health and Wellness website.
Faculty and staff can find a similar resource through the Faculty and Employee Assistance Program by calling 434-243-2643 or by emailing the office via the FEAP website.
A Family and Community Assistance Center has been set up to provide mental health services to the UVA community. Services will provided on the corner of Edgemont and McCormick at 505 Edgemont Road.
For the rest of us who may be struggling with emotional distress, or know someone who is, the Disaster Distress Helpline is available by calling or texting 1-800-985-5990.
Caring counselors are available at the helpline 24/7.
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Chris Graham
