UPDATE at 10:20 a.m.: Jason Dalton, the man who is suspected of killing six people in Kalamazoo, Michigan on Saturday night was an Uber driver who was taking fares in between opening fire at different locations, sources tell local NBC affiliate Wood-TV.
A Facebook user apparently posted a warning about an Uber driver named “Jason” who looks an awful lot like Dalton moments before the shooting spree began. “Jason” was “driving VERY erratically,” the Facebook user wrote. Although 911 was called “they didn’t seem all that concerned,” according to the Facebook post.
Original post: It was a terrifying Saturday night in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where a lone gunman appears to have gone on a random shooting spree that killed six people and injured two others. A suspect was apprehended early Sunday morning and identified as Jason Dalton, 45. He is likely to be charged on Monday.
Authorities immediately dismissed the idea that the shootings could be linked to terrorism. “What it looks like is we have someone just driving around, finding people and shooting them dead in their tracks,” Kalamazoo County Undersheriff Paul Matyas told local NBC affiliate WOOD-TV. “This is your worst nightmare, when you have somebody just driving around randomly killing people.”
The shooting rampage began at around 6 p.m. when Dalton is believed to have shot a woman in an apartment complex parking lot four times. She is in serious condition. Around four hours later, the gunman shot and killed a father and son, who were looking at cars at a dealership. Between 10 to 15 minutes later, the gunman went on to kill four women and wound a 14-year-old girl at a parking lot of a nearby Cracker Barrel. Before opening fire at the Cracker Barrel, the suspected gunman actually got out of the car and had a brief conversation with people in two other cars. After a few seconds of talking, the gunman “unloaded his weapon into both cars,” Matyas said.
“There’s no common denominator with any of these,” Matyas said. “There is absolutely no common denominator … through race, age, anything.”
Initial reports of the shooting claimed seven people were killed because authorities had mistakenly counted the 14-year-old girl injured at the cracker barrel as dead. “She is seriously, gravely injured but she is still alive at this point,” Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting said.
