No level of criminal background check on Jason Dalton could have predicted-or prevented his shooting spree in Kalamazoo on Saturday night, Uber says. Since then, he accumulated more than 100 rides and achieved a good rating of 4.73 out of 5.0 on the passenger ranking scale.
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Jason Dalton was quiet throughout the hearing carried out via video camera from the jail where’s being held without bail In fact, one of his few statements was that he’d prefer to not say anything.
Mellen sat in front. “We were driving through medians, driving through the lawn, speeding along and when we came to a stop, I jumped out the vehicle and ran away”.
“He wouldn’t stop. He just kind of kept looking at me, ‘Well don’t you want to get a ride to your friend’s house?’ and I was like, ‘well yeah, but I want to get there alive, you know, ‘ ” Mellen said.
“None of the things that we did do in this case, if we made them somehow better, would have made any difference”, said Joe Sullivan, Uber’s chief security officer, during a call with reporters.
“Remember we’re doing 3 million rides a day. How do you prioritize that feedback and how do you think about it?” When alerted to unsafe driving, company policy is to contact the driver.
Uber said on Monday it would not be changing the way it screened its drivers following the weekend shooting spree.
Dalton passed a background check and became a driver on 25 January.
Ed Davis, a member of Uber’s safety advisory board and a former police commissioner, said that even if the company had met driver candidates in person it would not be able to predict whether the driver might have a “psychotic episode”.
Investigators are particularly interested in communication between Dalton and Uber, as well as customers he might have driven, the sheriff said.
Six people were killed and two other were wounded in the shootings, which began at about 6 p.m. February 20 at Meadows Townhomes.
Meanwhile, heartbroken Kalamazoo residents gathered Monday at St. Augustine Cathedral for a Mass in memory of the victims: Richard Smith, 53, his 17-year-old son, Tyler, both of Kalamazoo; 60-year-old Mary Jo Nye of Battle Creek; her 62-year-old sister-in-law Mary Lou Nye of Baroda; 68-year-old Barbara Hawthorne and 74-year-old Dorothy Brown, both of Battle Creek. Four of the victims in the two cars died, police said. Abigail Kopf, a 14-year-old girl, remains hospitalized in critical condition.
He showed no emotion as the charges against him were read.
Gary Pardo Jr., whose parents live across the street from Dalton in Kalamazoo Township, described him as a family man who seemed fixated on cars and often worked on them. Cory Ghiringhelli told the court had admitted to investigators “that he took people’s lives”. MI does not have the death penalty.
At least six people are dead after a series of western MI shootings in which authorities say they believe a gunman chose victims at random. He reportedly shot his victims at a townhouse development, outside an auto dealership, and in the parking lot of a chain restaurant.
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In less than 10 minutes at the store, Southwick said, Dalton never gave him any reason to be alarmed.
