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It sounds like a horror film scene, but the experience of four Indiana theatergoers in Kalamazoo this weekend was no fictional thriller.
Following a seven-minute Uber trip from a downtown bar back to the Radisson Hotel shortly after midnight, they learned that the man behind the wheel was arrested soon afterward and accused of six shooting deaths that evening.
Brandon Lacic, an assistant news director at WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, describes the drama (video below):
An Indianapolis-area man visiting Kalamazoo Saturday night with his family said he ordered an Uber ride because he had heard there was someone shooting people randomly around town. But he had no idea his decision would bring him face-to-face with suspected killer Jason Dalton just minutes before Dalton was arrested.
The man — who asked to be identified only by Derek — was in town with his wife and mother- and father-in-law last night. The four had taken in a show and were at a Bell’s Eccentric Cafe on Porter Street when someone at the bar told them to be careful because there was a killer on the loose.
By that time, six people had been killed and two more gravely wounded at three separate locations. . . . Deciding it was safer to drive than walk, Derek ordered an Uber.
His driver, Jason, in a dark-colored [Chevrolet] HHR, soon arrived. The family piled in. Derek in the front seat with his wife and in-laws in the back seat.
“My father-in-law mentioned from the back seat, you know, the situation with the shooter,” Derek [said] in a phone interview from his Indy home. “I kind of jokingly said to the driver, ‘You’re not the shooter, are you?’ He gave me some sort of a ‘no’ response."
Dalton, arrested less than 20 minutes later, will be charged with murder Monday at a court arraignment, the station says.
The interviewee, who also spoke with police detectives Sunday, says he and his family were shocked when they saw the suspect’s vehicle description on a newscast.
But they didn’t know for certain their driver was the suspected killer until they saw his picture Sunday morning.
“It was the same guy,” Derek said. . . . “It’s a little jarring. I don’t think that it’s really set in yet.”
To verify the account, WOOD says it requested and saw a copy of the passenger's time-stamped Uber receipt.
-- Alan Stamm
