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Let's go ahead and jump into today's video because this is one of the most wild stories I have ever heard. And I'm really surprised. I hadn't heard of this until recently. And as soon as I heard it, I was like, wow, I have got to share this with my audience because it is truly mind blowing. Today I'm gonna be telling you about Jason Dalton, an Uber driver.
and his crazy story. So let's get started. So this is Jason Dalton and he was a regular 45 year old dude. He was working as an insurance adjuster and had a wife who he had been married to for over 20 years and they also had two kids. Jason grew up in Greenfield, Indiana and he moved to Kalamazoo during his high school years. So Kalamazoo is about halfway between Michigan and Detroit and it's
It's sort of a bigger town, but it definitely has the small town feel to it. It is known to be a very safe Midwestern area that a lot of people raise families in and people even travel there to get a little bit of that, you know, simple life. So when Jason was in high school, he was actually the co-captain of his football team.
He was a really good student, had good grades, and his friends described him as someone who was never really looking for any trouble, was very easygoing. So he went on to attend Kalamazoo Valley Community College, and he graduated in December of 1992 with an associate degree in law enforcement, but he did not enroll in the school's police academy program. He married his wife, Carol, in 1994,
And the couple had two children together and they were 10 and 15 at the time of this incident. Now, Jason Dalton was described as a really nice guy, like a family man, just your average dude. According to one of his old friends, Jason had tried to become a police officer in Michigan and some of the surrounding states, but had no luck. He had no interest in moving away to find a police job. So he just stayed put. So instead he decided to attend WyoTech,
Study auto body work and this is all the way in Laramie Wyoming Which is kind of far from him and the whole distance thing must have not actually bothered him as much as his friend said because Jason ended up working at a BMW office in New Jersey and this allowed him to get jobs as a mechanic and eventually as an insurance adjuster Jason loved to tinker with cars. He loved to mess He just really liked cars and he also really liked guns
And apparently at some point in his life, Jason had experienced a break-in and whoever broke into his house or his, I think it was just his garage, stole a bunch of his tools. And it was after this that he started buying guns to protect himself. Now around this time, Jason was described as having possibly a bit of depression. He was acting depressed.
but no one knew what was coming. So we are going to go to February of 2016. This is when Uber was just kind of starting to spread out to all the different cities across the country and they had just come to Kalamazoo. So Jason decided to sign up as an Uber driver thinking this was a good opportunity to make some extra coin. He specifically was saving for a vacation that he wanted to take.
So he ended up doing the whole Uber thing and he was driving a silver Chevrolet Equinox and up until February 20th 2016 Jason had pretty good ratings from his uber clients, but on February 20th Jason was having a normal day. Nothing bad had happened. It was going pretty well earlier that day He met up with a friend and the two of them went to a couple different gun stores Which was actually pretty typical for them
They did like to go to these stores I guess and hang out when he was at this gun store Everyone that was there said he was in a pretty good mood and seemed normal But after he had separated from his friend it was actually 4:21 to be exact and Jason was on his way to pick up his first uber passenger for this shift and his name was Matt Mellon Matt had actually left his car at a friend's house the night before so he was taking an uber to his friend's house to get his car and drive it back
home. When Jason arrived, he actually had his dog in the back seat. So Matt hopped in the front seat. And at first nothing seemed weird to Matt. He said this was a typical Uber drive. And during the ride, Jason got a phone call from one of his kids. Um, and he answered it on speaker. So Matt could hear him talking to his son. And he said they talked for a couple minutes and he was basically wondering if Jason would be coming home for dinner that night.
And this is so strange. Right after he got off the phone, Matt said that all of a sudden he took a 180 turn and Jason hit the gas pedal and they went flying. They were driving down like a neighborhood road and Matt said they were going between 70 and 80 miles per hour.
Matt said that Jason was just flying through stop signs, wasn't looking at all, just doing completely reckless, doing whatever he wanted to do. Matt said that he was yelling at him, asking him to stop and he started thinking maybe they would get in an accident. So he started bracing for impact. Matt was so desperate to get out of the car. He kept pointing at different friends' houses, telling him to stop because he was already there. But finally, after driving around a little bit, Jason slammed on his brakes. A witness named Casey Black,
lived inside of the house that the car stopped in front of. So I ran out into the front yard. The silver Chevy Equinox came screeching to a halt, and a door flew open, and, like, this guy does a tumble roll out of the car. -11? -I was just in the car with my Uber driver. He was leaving in and out of lane. He sideswipped the car. -Say, what kind of car is it? -A Chevy Equinox. -Did you want to talk to an officer, or do you just want me to put out an alert over the radio?
Now this call kind of pisses me off because it seems like the 911 operator just really disregarded what he was saying and
did not take it seriously at all. Now, to their credit, they can't really do much about a driver that's acting reckless, especially if they didn't see it themselves. So when Matt got off the phone with the police, he went home and filed an actual report with Uber. And it has since changed, but in 2016, you couldn't get a hold of Uber if there was an emergency, like right from the app. But now you can. Did you say anything to him?
Yeah, I was pleading for him to stop the vehicle so he could let me out. He was surprisingly calm the whole time. He was just stating that, he was like, "Don't you want to get a ride to your friend's house? Don't you need a ride?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, please just pull over and let me out." At that point, he refused to stop. So he was calm, he wasn't-- He kept driving really erratically. He didn't seem agitated or anything like that. He was calm, even though he's driving very fast and erratically.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. We were swerving into oncoming traffic. Once we got closer to my destination, I was yelling at him, like, "Please stop, please stop." That's when he started to get more agitated with me, and he was stating that
He was like, where's your friend's house? Where's your friend's house? And I was pointing out random houses. So after Jason dropped Matt off, he went home and got at least one of his guns and a bulletproof vest. And he got back into his car to go pick up some more people. So it was around 5.30 when the next person requested a ride from Jason. Her name was Macy and she was 15 years old at the time.
and she was at an apartment complex called the Meadows. So when he showed up, he wasn't able to find her. So he ended up calling her and telling her that she was giving him wrong directions. He actually ended up getting extremely frustrated and hung up on her.
So Macy wasn't sure what was going on so she sent him a few texts asking if everything was good and if he was still coming. But while Jason was trying to find Macy, he came across a woman named Tiana. She had actually just finished working out at her house and her daughter had a couple friends over and the girls wanted to go over
over to a different friend's house to play. So Tiana said that she would walk them there safely. And so that's what they were doing. Her daughter had four friends, so it was five girls and her. And while they were about to walk across the street, Jason pulled up right next to them.
He kept asking if she was Macy, which she wasn't but he for some reason thought she was and kept insisting But she kept saying no. No, I'm not Macy and he was driving really crazy So she kind of said it in a bitchy way, you know, like dude, what the fuck so he got really mad at her He sped away and then turned back around came flying back towards her and this time he had a gun pointed out the window and
And from there, he just started open firing on all the girls. Tiana yelled to the other girls to run and not to stop, which is a great tip because, you know, you never know how good someone's aim is. And if you're a moving target, you're a lot harder to catch. Tiana was shot a total of four times and a neighbor ended up hearing the gunshots and came outside. And then I heard a woman. She wanted to know about her kids.
- A bunch of people just like came out and started like helping her. - They quickly called 911. She was immediately asking if the kids were okay and thankfully they were. - Please don't move, they coming, okay? Please don't move, we got the kids. Please don't move. - I've never met her, this was the first time and it's the wrong way to meet your neighbors. She's very lucky and those kids are very lucky too. - You physically blocked some of those bullets. - Would I do it all over again?
Hell yeah, I'd do it again. Oh my gosh, imagine six of them. That's really, really lucky for none of them to have died. Tiana was obviously brought to the hospital to treat her gunshot wounds, but she did survive. So at this point, police are starting to kind of put together that this might have something to do with the call that came in earlier from Matt Mellon saying that he had this crazy Uber driver. And with this new report coming in, they said it was a silver equinox. They also said there was a dog in the backseat.
So they connected this right back to the first caller and figured out that this is some type of Uber driver that's harassing people. So the dispatchers ended up calling Matt back, and he had actually gotten the name from Uber. Hello? Hi, did you call earlier about the Uber driver? Yeah, yeah, he picked me up from my house. Did you guys catch him? No, we were just trying to see if he was involved in another incident. Okay.
So he sends in Jason's Uber profile picture, which was a pretty clear picture. Now, what is really unfortunate is the police really missed an opportunity here, I think, to possibly contact Uber and get this account suspended immediately so he couldn't continue to get unsuspecting passengers. But they didn't.
Not long after this happened at about 5 45, Jason ended up running a red light and side swiping a car. It turned out to be a man named Jordan Loomis, who was driving his wife to go get some ice cream. So they pulled over and called 911. Kelmson County, 911.
At this point, he's still driving a silver Equinox, but now it has some damage to it. So police can kind of, you know, see him more easily. His car is more identifiable. So a little bit after this, Jason ends up calling his wife. He asks her to meet him at...
his parents house because he wants to switch cars. Now this is crazy, but he came up with this story to tell his wife, you know, because she's going to be like, well, what the fuck, what the fuck happened to the silver Chevy Equinox? He said that he was attacked and shot at by taxi drivers. He said that there was this huge feud between taxi drivers and Uber drivers, which, you know, sometimes they got beef. Like I know, especially in Vegas, they always talk shit about each other, but enough to shoot each other.
He went into his parents house and got a handgun and he actually gave it to his wife and said to keep this on her so she could be safe. He said that she had to keep the kids with her, keep them safe and not allow them to go to school on Monday and she couldn't go to work either. And then he told her,
I'm not gonna tell you what I'm going to do, but when you watch the 11 o'clock news tonight, you'll know it was me. So he switched cars and he ended up in a black Chevy HHR. So now the car that the police were looking for isn't even on the road anymore. After Jason left his parents' house, he started doing more Uber pickups. Now people said that he wasn't acting strange when he was driving,
But people did point out the only thing that was weird is you know The app says he's gonna be picking you up in a silver Chevy Equinox You can't just put in whatever car you want They verify a specific car so that you as the passenger can verify you're getting into right vehicle But he was driving a bus
a black HHR and he would just tell passengers that his car was experiencing some trouble. So he had to switch cars temporarily and people were believing him. You know, there's this really strange sense, like false sense of safety when you get in an Uber that because it's an Uber or a taxi or something that you're safe, but you're really not. And it's very, very smart to be super cautious checking the
car, making sure it's the right person. Just being aware when you're dealing with Uber. I mean, this story, if anything, shows us that we all should pay more attention to our Uber drivers. So it was then around 10:00 PM. He hadn't shot anybody else, but he then had an encounter with the Smith family.
Now, the Smith family consisted of a wife named Lori, her husband Rich, and their two kids, Tyler and Emily. They were an extremely close family. Tyler was a 17 year old soccer player and he was very carefree. So that night was actually a really special night for Tyler. Tyler, Rich, and Tyler's girlfriend were headed to a car dealership to look at trucks for Tyler. So this was a very exciting day for him.
So Tyler's girlfriend ended up staying in their car while the two of them got out at the dealership and were looking around. It was then that Jason Dalton spotted them from across the street and started heading in their direction. When he got there, he stopped the car, hopped out and started walking towards Tyler and Rich. And he asked them what they were looking at after this, before they could even respond, he shot both of them multiple times.
Tyler's girlfriend saw all this happen, but, you know, was very fearful and decided to stay in the car until Jason left. Good move. And as soon as he was gone, she ran out, got Tyler's phone out of his pocket, and called 911. Hi, we just drove by the Kia. What road are we on? 94 Business, and a guy just shot some people in the parking lot. 911, what's your emergency?
And unfortunately, it was too late. By the time the police got there, they were both pronounced dead at the scene. So horrible. I mean, this father and son to just shoot strangers point blank. So bizarre. I don't know where he came from. He came from over here.
The police officer got there and so he's like, I'm sorry ma'am, but your husband and your son were shot and they didn't make it and then I just screamed. And then I had to tell my twin sister, I said, you know the father and son that were shot at Seeley? And she's like, no, no, it's not them, it's not them. And I said, yeah.
So then less than a half hour from when Tyler and Rich were killed, there was a report of another shooting at a Cracker Barrel. - Kimpton County 911.
And this was about five or so miles from the car dealership. And two cars in the parking lot were shot at right into the cars. Anyone hurt?
Now this is really, really sad because in this car were really unsuspecting older women that had been friends for a really long time. There was Mary Jo Nye, Mary Lou Nye, Dorothy Brown, Barbara Hawthorne, and all four of the women were friends. Mary Jo and Mary Lou were sister-in-laws. There was one more person there, a young child, 14-year-old Abigail, was hiding kind of towards the bottom of the car.
car, officers came up and they were all shot at. So they figured everyone in the car was dead. They looked and everything, but then they noticed that there was a little girl in the car. Now this little girl actually called Barbara, her grandmother. She wasn't actually her grandmother, but she was really close with her. They had like a really close relationship. That night, a bunch of women had gone to see a live performance at a theater and they were at the Cracker Barrel afterwards just to get some late night food after.
Mary was in the minivan and then there was another car next to it with the rest of the women in it. Now, Abby, the little girl, got shot in the head. She was rushed to the hospital, but obviously that's a very, very hard injury to come back from. Her parents were just devastated and drove to the hospital to meet her there. And when they got there, they were told that she likely would not make it. I mean, she was shot in the head. Her mom just sat with her thinking she was in her final moments.
A couple hours later, she flatlined. And they tried to do CPR. That was horrific to see. We told them to let her go. If it was meant to be, it was meant to be. At that point, we started to say our goodbyes. When something crazy happened, I was holding Abby's hand. And I looked right at her, and I said, Abby, if you can hear me. I said, this is Mama. I said, give me a sign. And she squeezed me. I knew right there she was back, and...
that she was gonna fight like holy hell. - So Abby surviving is an absolute miracle. Abby was still alive. They turned on all the machines, quickly saved her, and this little girl was so tough after many surgeries and a lot of rehab, she eventually recovered, you know? She's still struggling with a lot of things, but for the most part, she has recovered. - Sweetie. - Can you wave? - Yes, I am.
Amazing story. So after that shooting had happened, Jason decided to continue picking up Uber passengers. And apparently when people were riding in his car, they would ask him jokingly if he was the shooter because you know, the word was starting to go out that there was an Uber driver that was like shooting people. And I can't imagine ordering an Uber if that was going on, but anyway, but he would just respond to them and say, no, I'm just tired. I'm sure he seemed a little weird. So keep in mind, the police do know what he looks like and
They know his name. They had reports that this was a Chevy HHR now. So they were looking for that car and they actually pulled over seven or eight of these cars before they actually found Jason. And they did. - Driver, stick your hands out the window. - Is there any airspace for taxpayers? - Yes, neighbor, sir.
Did you check your back and middle? Yeah. City has one in custody, one weapon off of him. Alright, and picture north, first up.
And so they arrested him and took him in for interrogation. Now, the way he acted in interrogation is so strange. He immediately flipped his act. He acted like this really mellow guy. He seemed nice. - You've been searched, but just per protocol, we just have to search you again and all that, okay? You're Jason, correct? Okay. What would you like to do right now?
What would you like to talk about?
I really don't want to talk about anything. - Except whenever they would bring up, you know, you killed people tonight. Like how many people did you kill or why'd you kill them? He would just say, I plead the fifth. So it was really, really strange. But after kind of like buttering him up a bit, being nice to him and stuff, he finally started talking and he started telling the whole story all the way back from when he picked up Matt and started driving out of control. He admitted to that. He admitted to hitting another car. He admitted to driving to the apartment complex. - I grabbed my clock.
And what's so weird is the way that Jason talked about this was so matter of fact. Almost like he was telling the police about something he had witnessed versus something he actually did. I believe that I dumped the whole magazine there. I know I killed her and I don't even... Why do you assume that you killed her?
Because how could you survive that many gunshots? He then started talking about his encounter with Mary Lou, who was one of the women at the Cracker Barrel. And he said that he went up to her and asked if she had a dollar to spare to make America great again. And she said no. And he shot her. Now, after a while of talking to Jason, investigators asked him, why? Why did you do this? And his response was fucking wild. I know that you guys are going to have a hard time believing this.
But it literally took over my... The Uber app? Yes. I really didn't even see what the... I just tapped it. And then it was like a devil head that popped up. It was some sort of horned head. Like a cow head or something. I pressed that button. And that's where...
So yeah, pretty crazy. When I first heard this story, I was blown away by him saying this. Like, wow.
So I mean the question here is did he really think that that was true? Did he really think his uber app was like possessed by a devil or did he come up with this story when he was driving around thinking about what he was gonna say? I don't know a lot of people think that he just said this in order to be considered possibly mentally ill or insane You know, it kind of seems something schizophrenic to see a devil thing on your phone and do something. It's an easy blame It's a way to blame it and you'll get probably a lesser sentence if you can prove you're mentally ill
So a lot of people think that's what he was doing, trying to act normal, but acting kind of strange at the same time. So obviously he was taken into custody and it moved to trial. So his trial began on May 20th. Now, obviously the first person that he shot at was Tiana and she survived.
So she was able to be a witness. Now this is very, very hard for victims to stand in front of someone that tried to kill them and confront them or tell the truth in front. You know, it's very, very overwhelming. So Tiana was on the stand doing this when Jason started harassing her, trying to intimidate the witness as they call it, but he was trying to freak her out. He started acting insane too. Like totally, I think he was totally putting on a show. - I saw a gun. - In the elevator cars.
Black bags, they're black bags. If people drive around and look at them, it gets real, it's like, hey, it's time people look. This is your attorney, right? Yeah, you need to get to Temple because you need to get going because it's called intimidation. You need to be quiet in today's proceedings, okay? Yeah. So, Ms. Carothers, are you okay? Or do we need to take a minute? Take it. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Dragged out of the courtroom. I mean, really dude. Now people believe he was trying to come across as insane and that's why he was doing that kind of shit. But you know, a lot of people point out he was normal for like 40 plus years. But before he had this like psychotic break, I mean, could you just all of a sudden go insane? I don't know. It seemed a little convenient. Also the fact that he had changed cars, knowingly put on a bulletproof vest,
Seemed like he premeditated this he had this whole thing planned. I mean he even told his wife, you know Catch me on the news later tonight. So he knew what he was doing Jason had literally zero history of mental illness I mean It doesn't really make sense to have something like this some type of episode and then it to just go away Conveniently when the police pull you over and you have to go in to talk to them I mean he was acting really normal It seems like he's able to turn it on and on his attorneys decided to go with the whole
your insane thing. And they send him for a psychiatric evaluation at the Michigan center for forensic psychiatry. And this process for evaluation is supposed to take about 60 days because obviously you can fake it for like a day or something. But if you watch them for 60 days, you're going to see more of their true colors after this, the,
Actual trial would start that September or October now. They set a bunch of different dates for the trial But then they ended up moving it so the trial ended up getting delayed and jury selection didn't happen until January 2019 so this year opening statements started on January 7th and right before this recently Jason was on the phone with his mother and he told her that he actually wasn't planning to plead insanity and that it was over after
After all the professionals analyzed Jason, they determined that he did not meet standards for being mentally insane. So on January 7th, the trial started and Jason pled guilty to all counts. - If you would come forward, hopefully there's a microphone here. I would ask that he be sworn. - Raise your right hand please. Be solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God. - Yes. - Your full name is Jason Dalton.
Mr. Dalton, the court has been advised of your intent to enter guilty pleas as to the various counts of this information. You should be advised that if you do enter such a plea, you will be waiving or giving up certain legal rights. Do you understand that? Yes. I'm going to show you a document entitled Advice of Rights. Have you seen this before? Yeah, I read it earlier today. Is that your signature at the bottom of the page? Yes, both of them are.
You understand that if you enter guilty plea, you will be waiving or giving up many of these rights because we won't be going to trial. Yes, that's what Mr. Sleuth explained to me. You're doing this voluntarily of your own free will. Yes.
Yes, I've wanted this for quite a while. And on February 5th, 2019, Jason was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So like I mentioned earlier, Uber has made some changes to their app since this event. They've made it a little bit safer and there's more tools for passengers to protect themselves. It's still really unclear about why Jason did what he did.
I mean, we'll probably never really know. I would love to hear your thoughts on what you think happened and why he suddenly did this. I mean, do you think he had some type of break that day and just spur of the moment decided to do this stuff? Or was this something he had planned for a really long time? It is pretty bizarre, but the story really touched me in a lot of ways. The victims in this were so innocent and just did not deserve this. And the ones that survived were just so strong. I mean, Abby,
being so young and to survive being shot in the head. I mean, oh my gosh. And then Tiana to have six kids with her and try to protect them. I mean, at one point she literally shielded the kids with her body and took four bullets to save them. I mean, she's a hero. So really amazing story and amazing people. And my condolences seriously go out to the families of everyone who lost someone. I mean, so frustrating and so unneeded.
I'm very confused about Jason. He's a strange one for sure. That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.
