KANSAS CITY, Kan. (WRIC) — Football fans across the county tuned into the NFL draft on Thursday evening to see if their favorite college players would make the cut for the big leagues. But for UVA fans, there was an especially special surprise at the beginning of the night.
University of Virginia shared a tweet from ESPN showing that during the NFL draft on Thursday, April 27, there was a tribute to the three University of Virginia football players who were killed in a shooting on campus in November.
On the evening of Nov. 13, 2022, a shooting occurred on a bus full of UVA students who were returning to campus after a field trip. University football players Lavel Davis Jr., Devin Chandler and D’Sean Perry were confirmed to have been killed in the shooting. Michael Hollins — who is also a UVA running back — and Marlee Morgan were injured in the shooting.
The sole suspect and former member of the football team, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., was taken into custody after in Henrico County after a 12-hour manhunt. He now faces three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony.
During the draft on Thursday night, the Davis, Chandler and Perry were named the honorary first drafts of the night. The players’ families held up jerseys with their names and the number 23 on them from three different NFL teams — the Miami Dolphins for Perry, the Baltimore Ravens for Davis and the Jacksonville Jaguars for Chandler.
Some of the victims in the shooting were already fan favorites for the draft. NFL fan site Pro Football Network.com named Hollins and Davis as some of UVA’s top 2023 NFL draft prospects in a June 2022 article.
ESPN also previously reported that UVA players with expiring eligibility for the NFL draft would receive an extra season after UVA cancelled the final two games of the season in the wake of the November shooting.
