{"id":11075,"date":"2016-02-23T09:01:51","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T17:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/uber-acknowledges-complaints-about-michigan-shooting-suspect\/"},"modified":"2016-02-23T09:01:51","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T17:01:51","slug":"uber-acknowledges-complaints-about-michigan-shooting-suspect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/uber-acknowledges-complaints-about-michigan-shooting-suspect\/","title":{"rendered":"Uber acknowledges complaints about Michigan shooting suspect"},"content":{"rendered":"

KALAMAZOO, Mich.<\/strong> \u2014 The Uber ride-hailing service acknowledged Monday that it received complaints about erratic driving by the suspect in the random shootings that killed six people in Kalamazoo, and a prosecutor said the man admitted carrying out the attacks.<\/p>\n

As authorities pieced together Jason Dalton\u2019s actions, the prosecutor said he picked up Uber fares after the first shooting and probably got more riders after the subsequent shootings.<\/p>\n

Dalton, the 45-year-old former insurance adjuster, appeared briefly in court by video link and was charged with six counts of murder. A judge denied him bail.<\/p>\n

During a talk with investigators, Dalton waived his right against self-incrimination and confessed his role in the Saturday night shootings, Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting said.<\/p>\n

Dalton admitted \u201cthat he took people\u2019s lives,\u201d Kalamazoo police Det. Cory Ghiringhelli told the court. The murder charges carry a mandatory life sentence. Michigan does not have the death penalty.<\/p>\n

An Uber passenger said he called police to report that Dalton was driving erratically more than an hour before the shootings began.<\/p>\n

Matt Mellen told Kalamazoo television station WWMT that he hailed a ride around 4:30 p.m. Saturday. He said driver Jason Dalton introduced himself as \u201cMe-Me\u201d and had a dog in the backseat.<\/p>\n

Mellen sat in front. About a mile into the trip, Dalton got a phone call, and when he hung up, he began driving recklessly, blowing through stop signs and sideswiping cars, Mellen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were driving through medians, driving through the lawn, speeding along, and when we came to a stop, I jumped out of the car and ran away,\u201d Mellen said. He said he called police and that when he got to his friend\u2019s house, his fianc\u00e9 posted a warning to friends on Facebook.<\/p>\n

Uber said riders complained Saturday about Dalton\u2019s driving. When alerted to unsafe driving, company policy is to contact the driver. But Uber officials would not say whether anyone at the company spoke to Dalton, deferring to law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Dalton passed a background check and became a driver on Jan. 25. He had given about 100 rides, the company said. Since Dalton\u2019s arrest, several people have come forward to say that he picked them up for Uber in the hours after the first attack. The Associated Press could not confirm those accounts.<\/p>\n

Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller said Uber is cooperating with law enforcement officials, and he believes the company will \u201chelp us fill in some timeline gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investigators are particularly interested in communication between Dalton and Uber, as well as customers he might have driven, the sheriff said.<\/p>\n

Police have not provided a motive. The victims had no apparent connection to the gunman.<\/p>\n

Questions about motive and Dalton\u2019s frame of mind are \u201cgoing to be the hardest to answer for anybody,\u201d Fuller said. He expects some answers to emerge in court, but he doubts they will be satisfying.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, I ask people, because I keep hearing this question of why, \u2018What would be the answer that would be an acceptable answer for you?\u2019 They have to think about it for a moment, and they say, \u2018Probably nothing.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to say, \u2018You are probably correct.\u2019 I can\u2019t imagine what the answer would be that would let us go, \u2018OK, we understand now.\u2019 Because we are not going to understand,\u201d the sheriff said.<\/p>\n

The attacks began outside the Meadows apartment complex on the eastern edge of Kalamazoo County, where a woman was shot multiple times. She survived.<\/p>\n

A little more than four hours later and 15 miles away, a father and his 17-year-old son were fatally shot while looking at cars at a car dealership.<\/p>\n

Fifteen minutes after that, five people were gunned down in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel restaurant. Four of them died. A 14-year-old girl survived with a head wound and was hospitalized in critical condition.<\/p>\n

Uber prohibits both passengers and drivers from possessing guns of any kind in a vehicle. Anyone found to be in violation of the policy may be prohibited from using or driving for the service.<\/p>\n

Many handguns and long guns were seized from Dalton\u2019s home. But there was no indication that he was prohibited from owning the weapons, said Donald Dawkins, a Detroit-based spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which was assisting police.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued Monday, Dalton\u2019s family offered condolences to the families of the victims and thanked law-enforcement officials, saying their \u201cquick and decisive action prevented any further acts of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family said it planned to help authorities with the investigation.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Tom Krisher in Saline, Michigan; Dee-Ann Durbin in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Ed White in Detroit; and Don Babwin in Chicago contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KALAMAZOO, Mich. \u2014 The Uber ride-hailing service acknowledged Monday that it received complaints about erratic driving by the suspect in the random shootings that killed six people in Kalamazoo, and a prosecutor said the man admitted carrying out the attacks. As authorities pieced together Jason Dalton\u2019s actions, the prosecutor said he picked up Uber fares […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":11076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-11075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11075"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}