When a police officer asked Uber driver Jason Brian Dalton about the shooting, he told them that when he opened the company’s app, a symbol appeared that “would literally take over your whole body”, an officer wrote in a police report released Monday. “Dalton said that if we only knew, it would blow our mind”.
Advertisement
Dalton told police that upon opening the Uber app, he saw a symbol resembling a devil’s head and “that’s when all the problems started”, the newspaper reported.
After the first shooting, he spoke to her at his parents’ house and said she would not be able to return to work and that their children could not go back to school.
Dalton, who told detectives he owned several firearms, said the Uber app made him carry the gun and wear the vest on the day of the killings.
His wife, Carole Dalton, told investigators with the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office that he had told her a different story.
Dalton told police that he had only been driving for Uber for a short time, signing on with the dial-a-ride service to earn extra money. “Dalton explained how he has experienced a full body takeover, that is how he can understand the other mass shootings”.
Dalton’s gun is believed to have malfunctioned during the round of gunfire, according to the ATF report, before he fled the complex in his Chevrolet Equinox. The official told investigators that an identification label on the vest that said “MSP BLTC” could indicate that the vest was formerly used by Michigan State Police, which Point Blank had a contract with in 1997.
Dalton is charged in the random February 20 slayings of six people and wounding of two others at three separate locations.
Dalton, who worked as an insurance adjuster, told detectives that Uber requires all drivers to have a 2007 model vehicle or newer so that the app can connect to the auto. However, earlier this month he was ordered to undergo a mental competency exam to determine whether or not he is fit to stand trial.
The shooting spree ended when Dalton was taken into custody by police hours after the gunfire began. MI does not have a death penalty. Dalton’s court-appointed attorney, Eusebio Solis, could not immediately be reached for a comment Monday. Carruthers was badly wounded but survived the attack.
Advertisement
The girl told police in documents released Monday that she watched from the rear of Tyler Smith’s Range Rover as a man walked up to Tyler and 53-year-old Richard Smith at a auto dealership as they looked at a pickup truck. He also admitted to being at the scene of a shooting less than a half an hour later, at a Cracker Barrel restaurant a few miles away, where Mary Lou Nye, 62, of Baroda; Dorothy Brown, 74; Barbara Hawthorne, 68, and Mary Jo Nye, 60, all of Battle Creek, were killed and 14-year-old Abigail Kopf was injured.
