UVA shooting: Football talked to his mom right before he was admitted, he tells NBC

CNN
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One of three University of Virginia football players fatally shot after returning from a field trip last month was on the phone with his mother just before the shooting, he told NBC.

DSean Perry, 22, had been talking to his mother, Happy Perry, but her cell phone had died, his mother told NBC in an interview. published online Wednesday.

I had just gotten off the phone with him, Happy Perry told NBC, before pausing and repeating through tears: I had just gotten off the phone with him.

I’m broke, he said.

The comments come as DSean Perry’s parents, Happy and Sean Perry, are conducting their first round of interviews since their son and two of his teammates were killed on Nov. 13. A fellow student opened fire on the bus when it returned to campus from the class field. trip to Washington, D.C., killed DSean Perry, Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr. and wounded two other students, officials said.

Meanwhile, a student injured in the attack recalled blindfolding the gunman before the shooting, he told ABC this week.

I don’t know, it was like a numb look, and you know, that’s when I dropped everything and ran,” University of Virginia football player Mike Hollins said.

The UVA attack was one over 620 mass shootings this year in the U.S., including last month at a Virginia grocery store and an LGBTQ club in Colorado, and one of more than 75 shootings on school campuses in 2022, according to CNN and the Gun Violence Archive estimates; mass shootings involve at least four other than the wounded shooters.

DSean Perrys’ parents are calling for college athletes to speak out about gun control and mental health issues, and they’re vowing to support changes to gun laws, they said. The Washington Post.

I just don’t want any mother, father, family, sister, brother, aunt, uncle to have to go through what I’m going through right now,” Happy Perry told the Post for a story published Wednesday. If my voice can help, that’s a start.

Former UVA football player Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., the suspect in the University of Virginia shooting, is facing three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in connection with a crime, authorities said. Jones also faces two counts of malicious wounding, each with a firearm charge.

Jones had his first court appearance on Nov. 16 and was ordered held without bond by the court. He remains in custody at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. online records show.

DSean Perry of Miami, studying studio art and African American and African studies, was a fourth-year student. football team supporter. The university awarded him and two other slain football players their degrees posthumously in early December.

Hollins, the wounded player, recalled turning a blind eye to the shooter on the bus, he told ABC’s Michael Strahan in an interview Thursday.

We read the eyes and that was it,” Hollins said. It was just a cold look.

When I got up and the bus stopped, the shots started. “At that moment I knew we had to get off the bus because it could have been a lot worse,” Hollins told ABC.

Me and another teammate were the only two that got off the bus and I turn back and look over my shoulder and realize we were the only two running,” Hollins said.

Hollins turned to help others, and that’s when he came face-to-face with the shooter, he told ABC.

I didn’t really think much at the time, it was just, literally, instinct and reaction to go back,” he told ABC.

The gunman didn’t say anything, recalled Hollins, who eventually turned and ran.

He was shot. “I felt him hit me on my back,” Hollins said.

Hollins met with a pre-med student who helped keep him calm and controlled my breathing. He monitored my pulse until the ambulance arrived, he said.

Hollins didn’t know the shooter before that, but had seen him that morning before the field trip, she said, adding that he seemed normal.

I didn’t know him. I didn’t know him at all.

Hollins, who was in the hospital for days, learned of his teammates’ deaths days after the shooting.

I’ve never cried like that before, Hollins told ABC. So I lost a brother that day. I love Lavel with all my heart, I love Devin with all my heart. But DSean was different with him.

That was my brother, Hollins said, becoming visibly emotional. It was tragic to hear that he was gone.