Kalamazoo Shooting Suspect Was an Uber Driver Who Picked Up Riders Between Killings, Reports Say
The identity of a suspect who killed six people in Kalamazoo on Saturday night is reportedly a 45-year-old Uber driver named Jason Dalton.
According to local WDIV News, Dalton was taking Uber fares in between opening fire on bystanders at a car dealership, a Cracker Barrel, and other locations. The shootings happened over five hours in western Michigan, from approximately 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. The gunman shot randomly at people, many of them in parking lots.
“We have multiple people dead,” Undersheriff Paul Matyas of Kalamazoo County said, according to The New York Times. “In summary, what it looks like is we have somebody just driving around, finding people and shooting them dead in their tracks.”
An eerie Facebook post about Dalton was reportedly posted by a woman who claims that Dalton was “driving VERY erratically” and that her fiancee wasn’t able to leave his car while taking the Uber.
BREAKING: We've talked to woman who posted about bad Uber driver before shooting. Doesn't want to comment right now. pic.twitter.com/XLyF9cPCrW
— Luke Stier (@LukeStier) February 21, 2016
The death count was updated on Sunday, after authorities reportedly counted one teenage girl among the dead, before realizing she was still alive but seriously wounded.
Officials have not yet identified a motive for the shootings, and Dalton remains in police custody.
Correction: A previous version of this post included reports stating that an 8-year-old child was among the victims. Officers now say that early reports were mistaken. This post has been updated to reflect that.
[Image via Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office]
