Police in Kalamazoo, Michigan, arrested a suspect early Sunday morning for a string of shootings that left six dead and two wounded in what law enforcement officials called a random act of mass murder.

Jeffrey Getting, the Kalamazoo County prosecutor, said the person in custody would appear in court as early as Monday afternoon to face murder counts for each victim killed and assault charges for those wounded.

Officers identified the suspect as Jason Dalton, 45, who they said lives in Kalamazoo County and has no known criminal record. After his arrest, which occurred at 12.40am at a traffic stop, police recovered a semi-automatic handgun from his car.

On Sunday, Uber confirmed that the suspect was a driver who had passed a background check. The company’s chief security officer said Uber was “reaching out to police to help with their investigation in any way that we can”.

The shootings began around 6pm on Saturday with victims selected at random, police said. All three attacks took place in parking lots. A woman whom police believed was babysitting several children – they were unharmed – was shot multiple times outside the Meadows Townhomes residential complex in north-east Kalamazoo. On Sunday, the woman was in serious condition.



Close to 10pm, two people, believed to be a father and son, were killed near a Kia car dealership. Police responded 15 minutes later to a shooting in the parking lot of a nearby Cracker Barrel restaurant, where four women were killed.

Police identified the women as Mary Lou Nye, 62; Mary Jo Nye, 60; Dorothy Brown, 74; and Barbara Hawthorne, 68.



Mary Lou Nye, from Baroda, Michigan, was killed as she sat in the driver’s seat of an Oldsmobile minivan. The other three women, who were in one car, were from Battle Creek, a half-hour to the west.

Police initially announced that a 14-year-old girl in the front passenger seat of same car had died, but they later said she had survived. The girl was in surgery on Sunday morning, Getting told local media, in what he said was a good sign.

Police did not release the names of the two people shot near the car dealership. But the superintendent of a local school district said that one of the victims was 17-year-old Tyler Smith, a student at Mattawan high school. The other victim was his father, Rich Smith, according to Robin Buchler, the superintendent.

“He was really a great kid and really well liked,” Buchler told local media. “It’s just so traumatic, just heartbreaking.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A booking photo of Jason Dalton in Kalamazoo. Photograph: Handout/Reuters

On Sunday, the Cracker Barrel off Interstate 94 was roped with yellow crime scene tape. A call to the restaurant rang indefinitely. Employees at an adjacent hotel deferred any comment to the Kalamazoo department of public safety.

Standing on the porch of her mobile home, about 100ft from the parking lot, Chris Juenemann said she counted over two dozen marked police cars at the restaurant after the shooting took place around 10.20pm. The 58-year-old said she was watching television and on the phone with a friend when several shots rang out. Her friend, she said, even heard the bangs over the phone.

“My son comes running from the other end of the house, and says: ‘Did you hear that?’” Juenemann said.

The area is known for setting off fireworks, and her son initially thought the noise was just that, she said. But Juenemann recognized gunshots.

“We were looking and we didn’t see anything,” she said. “But then all the sudden I got back in the bedroom and seen all the cops going through.”

The park is typically quiet, she said, but, over the last couple of years, incidents have been on the rise. “It’s scary,” she said. “I mean, it’s just getting scary.”

In the lot near the restaurant, Bob and Nancy, a married couple from Illinois who declined to give their surnames, said they visited family in Kalamazoo often and stayed at the nearby hotel. As the shooting unfolded, they said, they had been eating dinner in downtown Kalamazoo.

“I saw all the lights and thought, ‘What’s going on?’” Bob said. “I thought maybe the place was on fire or something.”

“It’s just an unbelievable situation because it’s very safe,” his wife added. “It’s hard for the people around here to comprehend.”

Dalton’s house lies along a two-way road in nearby Cooper Township, a community of more than 8,000. On Sunday afternoon, other than a gaggle of farm animals grazing across the street, the only sight around the house was a group of reporters chatting with neighbors. On the driveway, empty cans of soda and energy drinks lay scattered.

Officials go “out of their way to keep everything quiet out here,” said Gary Pardo Jr, whose parents have lived across the street for roughly 15 years. Pardo said he had met Dalton only a “handful of times” and such meetings “were like any action with any other human being: there was nothing extraordinary about it.

“He was one of the neighbors that didn’t talk to my parents as much as everyone else. And when they did it seemed pretty brief. I mean, the guy just worked on cars, worked, and raised his kids.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jeff Getting, prosecuting attorney, speaks during a news conference in Kalamazoo. Photograph: Bryan M Bennett/AP

Michael Arney, a local radio reporter, said he attended Comstock high school in Kalamazoo with Dalton, who was now, he said, the third murder suspect from his 1989 graduating class. Dalton was co-captain of the football team, Arney said, and had decent grades. The two last spoke at a friend’s 40th birthday party, in July 2011.

“I’m just as shocked anyone else right now,” Arney said, adding that Dalton grew up in southern Indiana and moved to the Kalamazoo area in 1986. “I’m trying to wrap my head around it.”

Before the first shooting on Saturday, Arney said a mutual friend received a text from Dalton, relaying that he had recently started working as an Uber driver.

Police said they were investigating a claim that before the first shooting, the suspect was driving erratically and side-swiped a car. On Saturday night, an Uber passenger posted a warning to Facebook about a dangerous driver. The photo she posted resembled the suspect, and the passenger gave a description of the driver’s car similar to that of the vehicle in which he was arrested.



Surveillance video of the dark Chevrolet captured at the dealership helped lead to the arrest. Dalton was “even-tempered” and “cooperative”, law enforcement officials said, and was taken into custody without a struggle.

Getting said the suspect was in contact with others throughout the evening and police were seeking more details from his cellphone records. But he added that police are not seeking any other suspects.

Police searched Dalton’s home for more than four hours, starting before dawn. Chief Jeff Hadley told reporters they were searching for a computer, a hard drive and any additional weapons.



Regarding a possible motive, Kalamazoo County undersheriff Paul Matyas told local TV station WWMT: “There’s usually a rhyme or reason to it. In this particular case, we’re not finding that. Hopefully when we interview the individual he’ll disclose that to us.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that the police work in this situation saved lives,” Getting said on Sunday morning. “No question.”