UVA students hold candlelit vigil on third anniversary of tragic shooting

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - University of Virginia students held a silent candlelit vigil on the Lawn Thursday night, marking three years since a shooting that killed three football players and injured two others.

The Class of 2026 organized the memorial for D’Sean Perry, Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr., who were killed on Nov. 13, 2022, prompting an hours long shelter in place.

Fourth-year students who were on campus during the original incident gathered in silence to remember their classmates.

“You could have seen something like this happening. It didn’t feel quite a long time,” said Kyle Montaperto, a fourth-year student.

It was the last time the now fourth-year students, who were first-years at the time, would memorialize the shooting as students. Placing candles at Campbell Hall while standing in near complete silence, students said, the memory of that day is something they carry with them always.

“It’s something that I think about every time I walk by Beta Bridge, but it’s something that I think about when I go to all the football games, and it’s something I think about when I’m in classes with people I was with when I was getting the emails,” said Diya Gupta, a fourth-year student.

Gupta said the anniversary serves as both a day of mourning and community bonding.

“Obviously is a day of a lot of community loss, but I think as the years pass it’s something that brings our community together in kind of a special way,” she said.

With the Class of 2026 graduating this spring, questions remain about future memorial services. Montaperto and Gupta are among 4,300 fourth-year students who shared the experience with classes above them but not below.

“I guess the logical thing to do would be to end it after this year, but after, I think, leave it up to the football players, to the people who were closely affected by it. Give the decision back to the parents, the team, the coaches,” Montaperto said.

Gupta agreed that memorials may take different forms in coming years. She hopes to see a statue of Chandler, Perry, and Davis go up on Grounds.

“Everyone I know at UVA comes back, and I would hope when I come back in a couple years or thirty years there’s something here that memorializes the presence of those students,” she said.

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