An Uber driver went on a shooting spree that killed six people and wounded two more — but kept on picking up passengers in between bursts of gunfire, authorities and reports said Sunday.
Jason Dalton, 45, first opened fire at 5:24 p.m. Saturday in a parking lot at the Meadows Townhomes development in Kalamazoo, Mich., wounding a woman who was there with her three kids, according to authorities. That victim was severely injured but is expected to survive.
The second round of shootings took place at 10:08 p.m., when Richard Smith, 53, and his son, Tyler, 17, were fatally gunned down outside the Seelye Ford Kia Dealership on Stadium Drive, where they were looking at a vehicle.
Cops were investigating reports that Dalton then picked up a group of people and dropped them off at a Fairfield Inn Marriott before heading to the Cracker Barrel restaurant next door — where Dalton allegedly unloaded on five people sitting in two vehicles, according to WOOD-TV.
Killed were Mary Lou Nye, 62, of Baroda, Mich., who was alone in an Oldsmobile minivan, plus her sister-in-law Mary Jo Nye, 60, Dorothy Brown, 74, and Barbara Hawthorne, 68, all of Battle Creek, Mich., who were inside a Chevrolet Cruze. A 14-year-old girl in the front passenger seat of the Chevy was gravely wounded.
After the Cracker Barrel attack, the driver calmly went back to work, according to reports.
His next fare was a visitor from Indiana, who had heard about the shooting spree and turned to Uber because he thought it was the safest way to get from a brewpub back to the Radisson Hotel.
The passenger told WOOD-TV that Dalton showed up in his Chevy HHR and chatted normally with them.
“My father mentioned from the back seat, ‘You know, the situation with the shooter?’ ” said the man, identified only as Derek. “I kind of jokingly said to the driver, ‘You’re not the shooter, are you?’ He gave me some sort of a ‘no’ response . . . shook his head.
“I said, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said, ‘No, I’m not. I’m just tired,’ ” Derek added. “And we proceeded to have a pretty normal conversation after that.”
Derek described the driver as calm and quiet — even when it became clear that there were two cops inside the hotel lobby, with their cruisers parked outside.
“There’s no way he wouldn’t have . . . seen the presence of police,” the witness added.
Derek’s digital receipt shows he was dropped off at 12:19 a.m. Sunday, according to WOOD-TV. Dalton was busted about 20 minutes later, according to authorities.
Cops stopped Dalton at 12:40 a.m. after spotting his car at an intersection. He surrendered without a fight, and cops found a semiautomatic pistol.
Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting said shell casings recovered from each shooting scene matched the unspecified caliber of the seized handgun.
Getting also said that Dalton fired 30 or more rounds during the spree, which apparently targeted random victims.