Editors’ note: This story contains details of a mass casualty event and gun violence.
As the Virginia football team prepared to attend the funerals for three teammates who were killed in a Nov. 13 mass shooting on campus, the Patriots offered a helping hand to the team during their travels.
The funerals of the three players, wide receivers Lavel Davis Jr. and Devin Chandler and linebacker D’Sean Perry, were held in three different states on three different days. Perry’s was held on Saturday in Miami. Chandler’s was held in Virginia Beach on Sunday. Davis’s is scheduled to be held Wednesday in North Charleston, S.C.
With this much traveling in store for the Cavaliers, the Patriots loaned their team plane to help the players attend all three funerals.
This isn’t the first NFL team to honor the shooting victims. On Nov. 20, the Commanders wore Virginia decals on their helmets to honor Perry, Chandler and Davis.
Virginia decided to forgo its final two football games of the season, canceling its rivalry game against Virginia Tech in order for players to attend funerals over the weekend. Previously, the team canceled its Nov. 19 home game against Coastal Carolina.
Perry, Chandler and Davis were shot and killed on Nov. 13 on a bus near a school parking garage after returning from seeing a play in Washington, D.C. Running back Michael Hollins was hospitalized for a week and discharged last Monday. A fifth student, Marlee Morgan, also was wounded in the shooting, but she has since been released from the hospital.
The suspect, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., was taken into custody on Nov. 14 in connection with the shooting and charged with three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in commission of a felony, according to law enforcement. He is being held without bail in a Charlottesville jail.
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