SIX KILLED IN MICHIGAN SHOOTINGS, SUSPECT IN POLICE CUSTODY
KALAMAZOO: A gunman killed six people and wounded two in apparently random shootings in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, before being arrested early on Sunday, a prosecutor said.
A television station reported the suspect was an Uber driver who took fares between shootings.
The 45-year-old suspect, Jason Dalton, was believed to have opened fire late on Saturday outside an apartment complex, a Kia car dealership and a Cracker Barrel restaurant over a period of little more than four hours, Kalamazoo County prosecutor Jeff Getting said.
The victims “appear to be chosen at random, because they were available,” he said at a news conference. “They were shot multiple times, multiple - nine, 10, 11 shell casings at each of these scenes.”
The carnage in Kalamazoo, a city of about 75,000 people 240 km west of Detroit, was the latest in a series of mass shootings that have made gun control a campaign issue before the November US presidential election.
WOOD TV, a Grand Rapids station, quoted police as saying that they were investigating reports that Dalton dropped off Uber fares at a Fairfield Inn hotel. He then went to the nearby Cracker Barrel and killed four women and seriously wounded a 14-year-old girl.
The station reported that Getting said authorities were investigating a Facebook post by the fiancee of an Uber passenger, who said that Dalton had sideswiped a car, run a stop sign and was driving erratically just before the shootings.
An Uber representative confirmed that Dalton was a driver for the car-hailing service and said that he had passed background checks.
In a emailed statement, the company’s chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, said Uber was contacting police to help with the investigation.