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County officials say that a shooter who killed six people and injured two others here Saturday was an Uber driver who appears to have gunned down people at random during a  four-hour rampage.

Authorities said they are investigating reports that he gave a harrowing ride to one passenger just an hour and half before the shooting began and that he may have continued picking up fares during the spree of violence.

On Sunday morning, Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeffrey Getting said police identified the gunman as Jason Brian Dalton, 45, of Kalamazoo. Dalton was taken into custody hours earlier and appears to have acted alone. His victims had no apparent relation to one another.

“These weren’t sudden explosions, this was done intentionally,” Getting told reporters during a briefing. “They appear to have been chosen at random because they were available.”

State police on Sunday identified four of the six victims killed. All four were shot at a Cracker Barrel restaurant: Mary Lou Nye, 63, of Baroda, Mich.; Mary Jo Nye, 60, of Battle Creek; Dorothy Brown, 74, of Battle Creek; and Barbara Hawthorne, 68, of Battle Creek.

Ninety minutes before his shooting spree began, Dalton picked up a Kalamazoo resident for an Uber ride, but drove so dangerously that the man cut the journey short and called 911. An Uber spokesman confirmed that Dalton was a driver for the mobile ride company. Getting and Kalamazoo Police Chief Hadley said investigators are looking into reports from passengers that Dalton continued picking up fares before and after the shootings.

Authorities  said the shooting spree is not being investigated as an act of terrorism and that Dalton apparently acted alone. The violence across Kalamazoo is the latest in a series of mass shootings that have become a grim feature of American life in recent years. It comes more than three months after 14 people were killed in what was later deemed a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif. and less than five months after a lone gunman killed nine people at an Oregon community college.

 

Source:  Washington Post