University of Virginia shooting suspect Christopher Darnell Jones indicated his father’s departure in his parents’ divorce was extremely “traumatic.”
The New York Post points to a Richmond Times-Dispatch story in which Jones said his parents divorced when he was five, after which time he did not see his father again until his teen years.
Jones said, “My dad and me were really close. It just hurt me when he had to leave. That was one of the most traumatic things that happened to me in my life. I didn’t understand why he left. When I went to school, people didn’t understand me.”
WTVR reports that Jones had gone to his father’s apartment to do laundry about a month ago.
Jones’ father commented on the conversation he and his son shared, saying, “Yeah he was real paranoid, when I talked to him, about some things. He wouldn’t tell me everything. He said some people were picking on him or whatever, he didn’t know how to handle it. I just told him to just go to school, don’t pay them no mind, do what you got to do, you only got one more year.”
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA – NOVEMBER 14: Members of the University of Virginia community attend a prayer service for the victims of a shooting overnight at the university, at St. Paul’s Memorial Church on November 14, 2022 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. was apprehended this morning in connection with the shooting in which three university football players were killed and two others wounded. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
His father also reflected on the separation he and his son experienced after the divorce, saying, “Me and his mother separated when he was five. I was out of his life for 11 years.”
Jones’ father reacted to the shooting by saying, “What happened? Why did it have to get this far? He could have called me.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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