An Uber driver from Kalamazoo County, Michigan is now in custody after he went on a seven hour spree shooting eight people, killing at least six of them.
According to CNN, police believe the shooter to be 45-year-old Jason Dalton – who has no prior convictions – and local news channel WOOD TV8 has confirmed that Dalton is an Uber driver.
Dalton is reported to have shot victims in three different locations and allegedly picked up at least one fare in the middle of his massacre.
According to Gizmodo, police are now investigating a Facebook post that was allegedly made by the fiancé of one of the passengers that Dalton picked up in between the murders.
CNN spoke to Matt Mellen, who said he was a passenger of Dalton’s just before the shootings started:
We got about a mile from my house, and he got a telephone call. After that call, he started driving erratically, running stop signs. He was surprisingly calm, I was freaking out.
We were kind of driving through medians, driving through the lawn speeding along and then finally, once he came to a stop, I jumped out of the car and ran away.
Uber have confirmed to CNN that Dalton was driving for them and said he had passed a background check.
Uber’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan said:
We are horrified and heartbroken at the senseless violence in Kalamazoo. We have reached out to the police to help with their investigation in any way that we can.
Dalton is reported to have shot and injured a mother of three at 5.42pm in Richland Township before making his way to a Kia dealership where – four hours later – he killed a father and son.
He then shot and killed four people and injured one person in the parking lot of the Cracker Barrel Country Store. At approximately 12.40am local time, police took Dalton into custody, seizing a semiautomatic handgun.
Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeffrey Getting said:
There is just no question more people would have died if [police] didn’t find him when they did. These were very deliberate killings. This wasn’t hurried in any way, shape or form.
They’re on video. We’ve watched the video with law enforcement. They were intentional, deliberate and coldly done.
It is expected that Dalton will be charged today.
