CORAL GABLES, Fla. – In what a family friend described as a quintessential “American story,” D’Sean Perry went from growing up in Miami-Dade’s Richmond Heights neighborhood, to playing football at the prestigious Gulliver Prep in Pinecrest, to continuing his athletic and academic careers at the renowned University of Virginia.
But Perry’s story was cut short by gun violence over the weekend.
Christopher Darnell Jones, a former UVA football player, shot and killed Perry, Lavel Davis Jr., and Devin Chandler, all UVA football players, while they were on a bus after a field trip to the nation’s capital on Sunday night, prosecutors said.
Jones specifically targeted football players, including Perry, a witness told law enforcement, according to prosecutors.
“D’Sean was a beautiful flower in our garden at Gulliver, and when he got transplanted to his next school, we knew he was going to continue to grow, but, you know, God picked that flower,” Earl Sims, Perry’s former football coach at Gulliver, said during a news conference Wednesday in Coral Gables.
Sims, who described Perry as “kind, thoughtful and caring” and a “gentle giant,” said he was “shaken to the core” by his death.
“(I was) shaken so much that I couldn’t feel the feet under me,” he said.
Perry was working on a master’s degree in the arts and he dreamed of playing for the NFL. Attorney Michael Haggard, whose son played football with Perry at Gulliver, stood near Sims and said Perry’s parents are working to return his body to Miami-Dade County.
“D’Sean Perry is the American dream. He’s a Miami story, from Richmond Heights,” Haggard said. “His mom is a U.S. postal worker. His dad worked in corrections — two parents who put everything into their children — everything!”
Haggard said Perry rose up from Richmond Heights to achieve success both academically and on the football field. Haggard said he’s coached youth football in the area for more than a decade, including at a number of parks in Richmond Heights and elsewhere in South Dade and knows the challenges youth like him face.
“It’s an American story. The kid, coming from Richmond Heights, (he was) like so many of those kids with a lot of obstacles in their way,” Haggard said. “A lot of these kids, they don’t have financial resources, you’re gonna be the first to graduate from college, which changes generations of a family. You don’t have the resources other people do, and he overcame those.”
Haggard said “a lot of the credit goes to Gulliver who provided financial aid to great kids like D’Sean,” who served a mentor to other students and was a friend and mentor to students from all stations in life.
“He made other kids better from different backgrounds,” he said. “Kids who had that wealth, D’Sean made those kids better as people.”
In Virginia, Jones appeared in court Wednesday by video link from a local jail and did not enter a plea. A judge ordered him held without bond.
“D’Sean Perry had made it, he had made it,” Haggard said at the Hyatt Regency Wednesday. “He was at one of the greatest schools in the country, going to class as a great student-athlete. And this is how the story ends?”
Jones faces three counts of second-degree murder, two counts of malicious wounding, and additional gun-related charges.
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Jones, who turns 23 on Thursday, has a criminal record, including a 2021 charge of possession of a concealed handgun without a permit.
Haggard said Perry’s parents were not ready to speak out about his death as of Wednesday, but, when they do, gun violence will be at the front and center.
He said Perry’s death shows that the fight against gun violence isn’t just in the inner cities—it’s everywhere, including on the picturesque campus of a college founded by Thomas Jefferson.
“That’s America now,” Haggard, who said America needs stricter gun laws in order to prevent future tragedies, said.
The well-known attorney has represented numerous families affected by gun violence, including the parents of Joaquin Oliver, one of the students killed in the Parkland school shooting. But he told Local 10 News this is the first time he’s had to take on the task of representing someone he knew personally.
Haggard said the Olivers, as well as two fellow clients, the parents of Scott Beigel, a teacher and coach killed in the Parkland shooting, were the first to reach out to him after finding out that he knew Perry.
He said Manny Oliver, Joaquin’s father, told him: “I knew it (gun violence) would get to you, because it’s gonna get to everyone.”