UVA Shooting: 2 lawyers, former US attorney to conduct external review
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Two lawyers and a former U.S. attorney have been chosen to conduct an external review of the shooting that killed three University of Virginia students and wounded two others on campus last month, state Attorney General Jason Miyares announced Thursday.
William Burck and Crystal Nix-Hines co-chair the Crisis Law and Strategy Group for the Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan law firm and will lead the probe, Miyares said in a statement.
Zachary Terwilliger, a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, will serve as special counsel for federal, state and local law enforcement issues surrounding the Nov. 13 shooting.
Miyares noted the "many questions about the events that led to the tragedy" and said a report will be released to the public at the appropriate time.
Miyares was asked by UVA President Jim Ryan and Rector Whitt Clement to initiate the external review.
UVA community honors slain football players
Gospel music and the sound of choirs helped move an emotion memorial inside the John Paul Jones Arena for Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr., and D'Sean Perry, the three football players who were shot and killed by an alleged gunman after a school field trip last weekend.
Ryan said in the same statement that the university is "committed to working with the special counsel team to learn as much as we can about this event and the circumstances that led to it, and to apply those lessons to keep our community safe."
Police have said that a former member of the school’s football team opened fire on a charter bus as he and other students returned to campus after seeing a play and having dinner together in Washington, D.C.
UVA awards posthumous degrees to football players killed in shooting
Authorities have not released a motive. A witness told police the gunman targeted specific victims. Football players Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler were killed, while a fourth member of the team, Mike Hollins, and another student were wounded.
The suspected shooter, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., 23, made his first in-person appearance in court Thursday, as a judge scheduled a preliminary hearing for March 30. Jones has not yet entered a plea.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.