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“A Kalamazoo Uber driver accused of killing six people and wounding two others last month told police that the ride-sharing app took over his ‘mind and body’ and made him carry out the rampage,” freep.com reports. “In a series of interviews with police in the hours after the Feb. 20 shootings, Jason Dalton, 45, blamed the killings on the Uber app, saying his iPhone directed him where to go and when to shoot people.” Analog cab companies who have been hurt by the on-line ride provider now know the secret behind Uber’s success: it’s a tool of Satan . . .

Dalton told police that earlier that Saturday when he opened up the Uber ride service app, a symbol, which he believed was the Eastern Star, popped up. Dalton said the symbol resembled a devil’s head and “that’s when all the problems started.”

“Dalton described the devil figure as a horned cow head or something like that and then it would give you an assignment and it would literally take over your whole body,” according to police reports released Monday to the Free Press by the Kalamazoo City Attorney’s Office.

But despite his well documented malevolence, the boys in blue enjoyed some sympathy from the Devil.

Dalton said he would have gotten in a shootout with police when he was arrested, but the app directed him not to.

Or maybe Dalton’s just full of bovine fertilizer.

His wife, Carole Dalton, told investigators with the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office that he had told her a different story. She said he told her that day that he was having problems with a jealous taxi driver who’d shot at him, and that she should stay away from their home unless she was armed, according to sheriff’s reports also released Monday.

Not that an altercation like that — if it ever really happened — explains gunning down six innocent people. Either way, it’s yet another argument for staying calm and carrying one. And, if you’re a driver, maybe switching to Lyft.

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32 COMMENTS

  2. Seem to be getting a lot of conflicting information out of this one.

    Wasn’t it reported that he was a ‘normal happy regular person’ all up until this went down?

    Perhaps he thinks he can be diagnosed as crazy based on this?

    None of this really matters in my opinion, he killed multiple people in anger, he needs to be put to death. Why he says he did it? Who cares?

    • I agree. When there is no doubt. Give a chance to make peace and then take care of it and save a lot of tax money.

  4. Prescription meds. Like all the other mass shooters, going on, going up or down, coming off. As if doctors don’t kill enough people through bias, neglect, mistakes, ineptitude, they have to keep writing prescriptions for brain altering chemicals that don’t have any effect on the original problem.

    • You mean doctors aren’t experts on the pharmacological products they are pushing/prescribing??

    • I know the pharma companies leverage the press really hard to minimize the correlation. I really do wish someone would investigate this and put some real figures together. Someone who doesn’t have to worry about losing a billion dollars worth of ads for boner pills.

      Having seen some of the effects of these drugs firsthand, it’s no stretch for me to believe this guy really did hear Santa, or Satan, or whatever pulling his strings.

  5. We have a winner.
    And the reports of normalcy by people who knew him are a defense mechanism.
    If you say; “Yeah! I’ve known that guy was nuts for years. I can’t believe he waited this long to kill a bunch of people!”, you feel guilty.

  6. Wow, is that the best his defense could come up with? Should have said he drank some of the Flint water. Jackass, just plead guilty and go rot in prison.

    • They did spill a shitload (imperial, not metric) of chemicals into the Kalamazoo river a year or so ago…..

      • Yeah, yeah, come back when you can light it on fire. (Former resident of Cleveland here…)

  7. That defense makes about much sense as affluenza or the race card… So, why wouldn’t he use it?

    Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

  8. I wish I had studied more psychology to say if that sounds legit or not. It does seem pretty schizophrenic-ish.

  10. Stress, untreated high-blood pressure and other factors can lead to people seeing things.

    One of the issues with treating mental illness is that the doctors involved are very much left leaning and so all the research and papers are very much an echo chamber and zero new ideas or treatments come to the surface.

    Most doctors do not know when someone has the symptoms that can lead to delusional episodes until it is too late. The Atlantic did a long form piece some time ago after Sandy Hook that basically said that the research is way behind and under funded although some form of mental illness will impact 20% of the population at some point and that things like untreated high blood pressure can lead to mental illness like hearing voices or seeing things that are not there. They have done some experiments with markers for sex offenders to the point they can predicts with 80% confidence who will be repeat offender however similar experiments for those with mental illness has been all over the place.

    The biggest issue with all mental illness treatment is the stigma behind it. Mike Wallace’s Battle With Depression and Suicide is a good example. He went years hiding because he was afraid of what would happen if someone found out.

    This case like inner city gang violence has the same issue — too much focus on the gun and the killings and no time on the root cause that could of prevented this is the first place. If he really did have a delusional episode, someone should figure out the medical issues that lead to what happened to give diagnoses that can be used to help prevent it from happening to others. The gun and killing sells papers, talking about the abysmal state of mental health much of governments fault, unfortunately is not sexy to talk about.

    Having a family member with issues, it takes an extreme amount of effort to get the proper help or simply to have doctors effing listen. At the state level, they just want to give out pills like candy because it cheaper than other treatment. Mental health in the USA is as bad as pot holes in our roads and crumbling bridges.

  11. Sounds like somebody’s been reading the Laundry Files *way* too seriously…

    (Fun series by Charles Stross, if you haven’t come across it yet; but it’s getting rather dark in the later books.)

  13. Hey, what about my favorite barbeque sauce? It’s got a cow head with horns on it. Hmmm…the BBQ sauce defense.

  14. Sht… so that woman did have a right to feal nervous when she saw that other uber drivers concealed gun.

  16. The “Son of Sam” blamed a dog. Now it’s a cell-phone app. Did anyone ever say it was the gun telling him to kill? (Other than the gunhaters, who think that’s always the case)

    • True, though MDMA and Psilocybin therapies are very useful in treating/apparently curing PTSD, and other things as well.

      As for bi-polar, borderline personality disorder, psychosis, many people if they get the right meds, in the right dose, can be made to function pretty damn normally. Sadly, getting a doctor, and one who will work at getting things dialed-in takes luck (or more likely) a metric f-ton of money. I’ve seen it work, and I have seen people without the means get themselves utterly screwed up. .

  20. Good luck with insanity please buttercup. I hope a victim family member gets to him through a con in the joint.

  21. There’s something funny going on with this one…..

    Too much conflicting information to read out a coherent narrative.

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