MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – The family of D’Sean Perry held a news conference Thursday, a month after the rising football star was killed in a shooting at the University of Virginia.
Perry, 22, was a Miami native who played football at Gulliver Prep. He was one of three people killed in a shooting at the University of Virginia on Sunday, Nov. 13 around 10:30 p.m. while on a bus returning from a field trip with other UVA students after they had gone to see a play in Washington, D.C.
His family is now speaking out against the rise in gun violence, with their attorney citing new statistics that show that the most common cause of death for those under the age of 19 is gun violence.
The attorney said statistics also show that the U.S. has more guns than people.
Perry’s mother, Happy Perry, told reporters Thursday that her son was a “goal chaser,” who dreamed about making it to the NFL and always wanted to help others.
“Helping his community, helping his family and helping the people who helped him get there,” she said.
“It’s very difficult because everywhere in the house, we have pictures, and we have to walk by his room, we have to go up there to clean up his apartment -- so everything in that room is locked up, but we still have to pass that everyday,” D’Sean’s father, Sean Perry, said.
Last month, Perry’s coaches and friends described him as a determined, passionate young man, whose interests extended beyond the football field.
“I continued to hear his name associated with things like music, art, life, love,” Virginia football coach Tony Elliott said.
Christopher Darnell Jones, Jr., is accused of killing Perry, Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr., all of who played football for the Cavaliers. Another football player, Mike Hollins, was seriously wounded after he was shot in the back. He has since been released from a Richmond, Va., hospital. A female was also wounded.
Jones was arrested in suburban Richmond after a manhunt that lasted almost 24 hours. He is being held without bond.
A GoFundMe Page has been set up to help with the Perry family’s expenses by Bradley Smith, the owner of a Palmetto Bay barber shop.
Smith stated: “We watched him go from a little kid to a handsome young man with a full scholarship playing football at UVA.”
Smith says on the GoFundMe page that Sean Perry would bring his son to the barbershop for “as long as I can remember.”
The university has cancelled its final two football games of the season.
In a reference to the gospel song “This little light of mine,” Perry’s parents said they will keep his light shining bright by staging a bike drive their son had wanted to organize over the holidays. The idea is an example, they said, of their son’s community-focused and generous heart.
For more information on the bike drive, click here.
Watch Thursday’s full press conference below: