The Uber driver who shot eight people at three locations in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Saturday is in custody, but his motives for committing the attacks are still unknown, authorities say. Jason Dalton, 45, was arrested outside a bar early Sunday morning after shooting a woman at an apartment complex at 6 p.m. the night before, then shooting a man and his son at a Kia dealership at 10 p.m. and shooting five people at a Cracker Barrel about 15 minutes later. Six of the shooting victims have died.
Dalton seems to have begun working for Uber earlier this month, the New York Times says, and worked at some point in the past for Progressive Insurance. CNN says he does not have a criminal record and reports that an Uber customer who rode with Dalton on Saturday before the shootings began said that he’d begun driving erratically after taking a telephone call.
This, from the Times, is unnerving:
Neighbors described [Dalton] as quiet and polite, though he caught their attention when he occasionally shot a gun out the back door of the house he shared with his wife and two children.
Two of the women killed at the Cracker Barrel, MLive reports, were sisters-in-law engaged in a monthly tradition of eating at the restaurant and attending a show at Western Michigan University’s Miller Auditorium. The two other women killed at that scene are believed to have been friends of theirs.
Per the Mass Shooting Tracker, the Kalamazoo killings constitute the 42nd incident in the United States this year in which four or more people were shot.
