Uber driver suspected in ‘random’ Michigan shootings, six dead

A Michigan man who worked as an Uber driver was under arrest on Sunday in the fatal shooting of six people in Kalamazoo, as police investigated reports that he may have driven customers of the car-hailing service on the night of the rampage. Prosecutors alleged that Jason Dalton, 45, opened fire, apparently at random, in parking lots outside an apartment building, a car dealership and at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Kalamazoo. Dalton is expected to be arraigned on Monday on charges of murder, assault and firearms violations, the prosecutor said. Police said he had no known criminal record.

(The victims) appear to be chosen at random, because they were available.

Jeff Getting, Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney

The carnage in Kalamazoo was the latest in a series of mass shootings that have elevated gun control as a campaign issue in the November U.S. presidential election. WOOD-TV, a Grand Rapids station, quoted police as saying that they were investigating reports that Dalton dropped off Uber fares at a Fairfield Inn hotel and then killed four women and wounded a 14-year-old girl at the nearby Cracker Barrel. An Uber passenger, Matt Mellen, told CBS TV affiliate WWMT that he had tried to alert the company after a wild ride with Dalton about an hour before the first shooting was reported.

He just kind of kept looking at me like, 'Don’t you want to get to your friend’s house?’ and I’m like, 'I want to get there alive.

Mellen

Kalamazoo