Falling Down In Kalamazoo

Uber driver Jason Dalton of Kalamazoo in Michigan USA .....

Jason Dalton Serial Killer

 .... shot dead six people in one night whilst still picking up regular fares, and dropping them off.

The 45-year-old driver started the killing spree on the 20th of  February 2016 ... on that day he had purchased a black jacket with pockets designed to conceal a handgun. He started his shift driving a silver Chevrolet Equinox and picked up Matt Mellen shortly after 4:00 p.m. but the took the terrified passenger on a 'crazy ride' after Dalton had taken a call from his son during the journey.

He was swerving lanes, speeding up to 65 to 75mph, and going in to head-on traffic, before losing control and driving through a central reservation, ignoring a stop sign, and sideswiping a Ford Taurus. Dalton eventually came to a stop at another stop sign, and Mellen jumped out and called 911. But although a "Be on the lookout" (BOLO) notification was put out nothing else was done.

Dalton meanwhile had driven off and returned home, but then he called his wife 41 minutes later, asking her for the keys to their Chevy HHR because his had been damaged “by rival taxi drivers”. While home he had picked up another gun and donned a bulletproof vest under his black jacket, before driving to meet his wife at his parents' residence, approximately 10 miles (16 km) away. 

On the way, however, Dalton accepted another Uber pickup request at 5:15pm from a woman who wanted him to pick up her boyfriend at a Richland Township apartment complex. However the address details were inaccurate, and after driving around the complex Dalton became enraged, and eventually drove up to a woman and children ... he asked her if she was the caller, she replied no, and around 5:42pm the woman was shot repeatedly in a parking lot of the apartment complex. 

He fired around fifteen rounds at her, with ten shell casings later recovered at the scene of the shooting. The woman survived by playing dead, and five children, including the woman's daughter, who were present at the scene of the shooting, escaped unharmed by hiding while he shot at the woman.

The original caller then texted Dalton to correct the address, but it wasn't until twenty minutes after the first shooting occurred, that Dalton called the requester back, saying that he hadn't responded to her text and that he could not any longer take the ride because "something had come up." He continued to drive erratically after leaving the complex, with numerous calls to the police reporting him, including his sideswipe of another vehicle before driving off again .... the first victim had just been found and was being attended by medics. 

Dalton allegedly then drove to meet with his wife and children at his parents' home ... he repeated to her that his car (which was badly damaged after swiping two vehicles and crossing at least one central reservation) had been damaged by a taxi driver enraged that an Uber driver was taking customers. But after failing to get a Hummer he stored at his parents house started, he finally took her Chevrolet HHR  car keys. He then stuffed yet another pistol, into his wife’s waistband, telling her “it wouldn't be safe to go home without a firearm”. He then instructed her not to go to work and not to take their children to school.

His wife was thoroughly panicked, but he told her “if she watched the news that night she would understand”. Dalton then drove off and withdrew money from an automated teller machine at 6:44pm Then, after driving around for he allegedly returned to his house and switched handguns. He left his house again at 7:37 and, continued accepting Uber requests, which he carried out without incident, with none of the passengers noticing anything unusual or alarming about him. He then called his wife at 8:26 and told her not to call her parents.

At 10:00pm at a Kia dealership in Kalamazoo Dalton parked his car, and approached a young man and his father and asked them 'what they were looking at'. Before they could respond, he fired approximately eighteen rounds, fatally striking both males. Witnesses in a Burger King parking lot across the street, recorded Dalton fleeing, and one called 9-1-1.

Dalton then drove to a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Texas Township and fired at people parked outside ... Four people seated inside two vehicles were killed, and one other person was wounded. Dalton then apparently drove home to reload and get more ammunition.

By now, police had finally realised that they had an active mobile shooter in a Chevy HR and active shooter alerts were out (but not too the public except via TV and radio news reports) .... meanwhile Dalton had resumed taking Uber drives. At 12:04 a.m. on February the 21st, he picked up three people and dropped them off at a dormitory on the WMU campus. 

Later, at 12:12, Dalton picked up four people and drove them to their hotel. During the ride, one passenger, who had been hearing reports of the shooting spree, jokingly asked Dalton, "Are you the shooter?" Dalton simply replied, "No. I'm tired" A few minutes later, he picked up another three people, and just like the previous ride, a passenger asked if he was the shooter, which Dalton also vehemently denied. None of the passengers he picked up were unduly alarmed (although why they were calling Uber, when they knew a Uber driver was on a kill spree, defies comprehension ..... to save $5 ?*?). 

Finally police saw Dalton drop off the last three people and stopped him at 12:40am. Dalton was pulled out of his vehicle and arrested after back-up arrived. He was armed and wearing the black jacket, and a bullet proof vest. He had fired at least 30 rounds during the spree killings. Dalton confessed to the shootings, but bizarrely he claimed his Uber mobile app's symbol resembled that of the Order of the Eastern Star, (who he claimed were devil worshippers), and that it took over his body during the events, after he pressed it and a new app resembling the Devil abruptly popped up.

However he later said that he was no longer experiencing these mental problems (presumably as he no longer had access to the Uber App). Police indicated that he had no known criminal history or mental health record. His lawyers tried a temporary insanity defence but this was rejected (it was tricky anyway, because his buying of the black jacket and wearing of a bullet proof jacket, as well as reloading and changing guns showed planning and intent). 

On February 5, 2019, Dalton was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and is currently imprisoned in the Oaks Correctional Facility.

William "D-Fens" Foster - Falling Down

All this reminded me a little bit of the 1993 film Falling Down starring Michael Douglas, in which he played a man who a series of trivial incidents drive to increasing violence .... its not a complete parallel of course, but like Douglas's character, Dalton had no history of violence or psychiatric treatment, until the phone call from his son seemed to flip a switch. He may have been acting a little odd the day before (according to a neighbour), but his family hadn't noticed or reported any issues.

Then suddenly it all became too much, and he took his frustration out on anyone who annoyed him, even unwittingly ..... how many more time ticking bombs are out there in our society?