Release the Report, President Ryan
by James A. Bacon
Christopher Darnell Jones, Jr., has plead guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of aggravated malicious wounding, and five counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony in connection with the mass shooting at the University of Virginia two years ago.
Now UVA officials should release the Attorney General’s report on the university actions leading up to the shooting, which resulted in the deaths of three UVA football players.
That’s what UVA leadership promised. Now it’s time to make good on that promise.
Initially, UVA officialdom declared that it would release the report to the public shortly after receiving it on Oct. 30, 2023. UVA Spokesperson Brian Coy was quoted by media as saying “The University will share the report publicly, with a goal of doing so by early November.”
But President Jim Ryan and Rector Robert Hardie sang a different tune after having had time to digest the findings.
“After conferring with counselors and Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley, we have decided that we need to wait until after the criminal proceedings to release further information,” Ryan said a year ago in a statement appearing in UVa Today. “Making the reports public at this time, or even releasing a summary of their findings and recommendations, could have an impact on the criminal trial of the accused, either by disrupting the case being prepared by the Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney, or by interfering with the defendant’s right to a fair trial before an impartial jury.”
Rector Robert Hardie supported the delay. Speaking for the Board of Visitors, he said, “We agree that we should postpone the release of further information until the criminal prosecution is complete to avoid interfering with or complicating the proceedings.”
Well, there won’t be a jury trial. The matter of guilt or innocence has been established. All that remains is the sentencing.
Don’t be surprised, though, if the UVA administration continues delaying the release. After all, as The Daily Progress newspaper revealed through its acquisition of text messages through the Freedom of Information Act, Ryan did not hold off releasing the report in response to a request from Hingely. He initiated the request and used Police Chief Tim Longo as the go-between. UVA composed the statement, and Hingely agreed to it. Many believe that Ryan was looking for a pretext to avoid letting the public see the report.
Ryan is in a tight spot. Left-wing faculty and students are in an uproar over UVA’s action in May to shut down the pro-Palestinian encampment. They’ve been demanding an inquiry into the event, but Ryan has been slow-walking any such investigation. Meanwhile, 128+ physicians at the UVA Medical Center have charged the UVA Health System and the dean of the Medical School of a wide range of serious transgressions that have prompted an investigation led by the Board of Visitors. The Board of Visitors is now comprised 13-to-4 of members appointed by Governor Glenn Youngkin, several of whom would like to put the squeeze on the University’s administrative overhead. Although Ryan has successfully fended off any Board challenges so far, pressure is building.
The AG’s investigation into the triple homicide in 2022 delved into what went wrong at the administrative level. There were numerous red flags that Jones was a menace to the University community. What prevented the administration from taking preventive action?
Although UVA has yet to release the report, Ryan has proactively put his spin on the events leading up to the shooting. In remarks to the UVA Faculty Senate in October, Ryan said that the Office of Student Affairs was aware of concerns that Jones posed a threat, but entering and searching a student’s room for guns is not something they’re trained to do. At the same time, University police were blocked by state law from taking action.
“I had no idea that the report would be delayed this long,” Ryan told the faculty senate. “I mean I thought that once it was done it would be out. It was a little bit of a surprise to find out this might interfere with the criminal prosecution because that wasn’t raised earlier.”
State law prohibits the possession of firearms in any building owned by the Commonwealth with the sole exception of university buildings, which Ryan described as “an unusual and slightly hard-to-understand loophole.”
For two years UVA has pushed for state legislation to close that loophole. As described by Ryan, the back story is complicated.
“My understanding is that towards the end of the process when this bill [restricting firearms in public buildings] was passed, people raised ROTC and VMI as [the Virginia Military Institute] having trouble with the legislation. Instead of carving out an exception for ROTC or VMI, they just exempted higher education altogether,” he explained.
Possession of a firearm while on Grounds may not break state law, but it does violate University policy, Ryan explained. The people who investigate transgressions of University policy work for Student Affairs, not the university police.
“That’s not a great situation regardless of what you feel about firearms,” Ryan said. “Having Student Affairs people be the ones who follow up on whether someone might have a gun in their dorm room is, I don’t think, an ideal situation. So, we have been pushing to close that loophole so that the possession of firearms in a university building, just like the possession of firearms in the General Assembly Building or in the executive building, would also be unlawful.”
Longo, the UVA police chief, “is really eager to see this changed,” Ryan said, because the loophole prohibits University police from searching a student’s room even if they suspect there’s a firearm in there.
The first year the bill was proposed, it didn’t make it out of the General Assembly. Last year it did, but it was vetoed. Ryan assured the faculty senate that UVA would try again in the 2025 session. “This time we’re trying to see if we can craft the legislation that would either allow local control, so this would be a law that localities, meaning in this case universities, could opt into.… We’ll keep going as long as I’m president. Who knows how long it will take, but this one doesn’t seem hard to me.”
That’s all fine and good. If those are the kinds of issues that interfered with the ability of the University to deal with the challenge Chris Jones presented before he went on his rampage, there is no reason the public shouldn’t hear the whole story. Matters of bureaucratic oversight had no bearing on Jones’ guilt or innocence, and they certainly have no relevance to Jones’ sentencing. There is no justification for withholding the report any longer.
Incidentally, the families of the three murdered young men, who were awarded $9 million in a settlement with UVA, have called for the release as well.
Time to cough up the report, Mr. Ryan. The longer you run out the clock, the more it looks like you have something you’d rather the public not see.
James A. Bacon is contributing editor to The Jefferson Council.