The Uber driver accused of massacring six people during a shooting rampage told police his cellphone was controlling him.
Jason Dalton, 45, was picking up fares across Kalamazoo, Michigan on February 20th when he says the Uber app gained control of him “like artificial intelligence that can tap into your body,” WOOD-TV revealed.
Dalton was reported to have shot victims in three different locations and picked up at least one fare in the middle of his massacre.
Before the shooting spree started, Dalton said the Uber symbol on his phone turned into an image resembling the Eastern Star symbol before he felt like his body was taken over, New York Daily News reports.
Police wrote in their report:
Dalton acknowledged that he recognised the Uber symbol as being that of the Eastern Star and a devil head popped up on his screen and when he pressed the button on the app, that is when all the problems started.
Police say the victims – as young as 14 – appeared to all be selected at random.
WOOD-TV reported that Dalton told police he remembered hearing the gunshots but didn’t remember feeling the gun. He was later found with a 9mm handgun and a bulletproof vest when he was arrested.
The police report says that in the midst of the massacre, Dalton warned his wife that they ‘couldn’t go back to work anymore and the kids could not go back to school’.
His wife, Carole Dalton, says her husband told her: “She would see what he was talking about on the news and that it probably wouldn’t say his name, but as soon as she saw it on the news she would know it was him”.
Dalton remains in jail on murder charges and has been ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation.
