New York Daily News

Teach, pals, dad and son blown away

- BY CHRIS KILLIAN and STEPHEN REX BROWN

A RETIRED teacher ending a night on the town and a father and son at a car de dealership were among six p people killed during an Uber driver’s shooting rampage in Michigan, police said Sunday.

Mary Jo Nye (left), who t taught English at Calhoun Community High School in Battle Creek, had joined her sister-in-law and other friends for a monthly night out in Kalamazoo, where she often took in a show at an auditorium­dit i at Western Michigan University, The Kalamazoo Gazette reported.

She and three others had just gotten into her Chevrolet Cruze parked at a Cracker Barrel around 10:30 p.m. Saturday when the killer,r, identified as Jason Dalton, n, 45, opened fire.

Nye, 62, Barbara Hawthorne, 68, and Dorothy Brown, 74, were killed byy the hail of bullets.

A 14-year-old girl in the front passenger seat was s gravely wounded.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said she was “working hard to stay alive. He said the shooting was “senseless violence at its worst.”

Nye’s sister-in-law, Mary Lou Nye, 60, was also in the parking lot and was killed in her Oldsmobile minivan, cops said.

Mary Jo Nye remained devoted to Calhoun Community High School after she retired, and continued attending graduation­s, the school’s assistant director Tara Egnatuk told the Battle Creek Enquirer.

Brown’s neighbor, Patrick Mallon, said she lived alone with two cats, and gave him gift cards every Christmas for the odd jobs he did for her, even though he never asked for payment.

Brown was “just a really nice, pleasant, talkative neighbor,” Patrick Mallon told the Daily News.

“It’s rough on me right now. She was just a very decent woman.”

Prior to the ambush at Cracker Barrel, police said Dalton opened fire at the nearby Seelye Kia car dealership, killing Tyler Smith (photo above), 18, and his dad, Richard Smith, 53.

Tyler Smith’s Facebook shows a smiling teen with an affinity for sports cars.

Tyler Smith, a high school senior, spent half of each school day at a technical center focusing on marketing, Mattawan Schools Superinten­dent Robin Buchler said. She added that her son, also a senior, described his classmate as “well liked” with a constant “smile on his face.”

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