|
 It was also disclosed that the suspect, Jason Dalton, who was
reported to have obtained a community college degree in law
enforcement two decades ago, visited a gun shop shortly before the
shootings and bought a heavy-duty jacket that could conceal a small
pistol.
Dalton, 45, was denied bail on Monday after a court hearing in which
a detective testified that he admitted to the five-hour shooting
rampage over the weekend in Kalamazoo, Michigan, about 150 miles
(240 km) west of Detroit.
Hours before the first shooting occurred on Saturday evening, Dalton
and a friend visited Southwick's, a gun shop he frequented in nearby
Plainwell, a shop employee told Reuters.
Dalton was a regular customer who usually spent time chatting with
the staff, but he bought the jacket and left the store within 10
minutes, said the employee, who asked not to be identified.
"He’s in here enough for me to know he talks to the guys about guns
and different stuff,” she said.
Searching for a motive behind the violence, investigators focused on
a 9mm semi-automatic handgun and a cellphone seized from Dalton, as
well as the fact that he picked up fares for the Uber car-hailing
service between or after the shooting episodes, authorities said.
At least one passenger who rode in Dalton's car that night,
apparently after the rampage had begun, recounted that the Uber
driver seemed oddly calm and even appeared to be fatigued to the
point of almost falling asleep at the wheel.
"He didn't say much and he didn't act abnormal. He was rather
quiet," Marc Dunton, 39, told Reuters of the ride he shared with two
friends, taking the front-passenger seat beside Dalton.
Prosecutors say Dalton randomly shot at people at an apartment
complex, a car dealership and a restaurant, killing six and badly
wounding two others, including a 14-year-old girl left in critical
condition.
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"Right after the first shooting at the apartments, he left the scene
and sideswiped a car," said Paul Matyas of the Kalamazoo County
Sheriff's Department. The accident prompted him to switch cars, from
a silver Chevrolet Equinox to a Chevy HHR, both vehicles belonging
to his family, Matyas said.
Dunton said he was picked up in an HHR. Another Uber passenger,
Matthew Mellen, told CNN he rode in Dalton's Equinox and that Dalton
seemed normal until he received a call on his cellphone, at which
point he began driving erratically, running stoplights and a stop
sign and sideswiping another vehicle.
Matyas said investigators were examining Dalton's Uber contacts and
working to "track his phone calls, track his whereabouts" in the
hours before his arrest early on Sunday.
Detroit-based NBC affiliate WDIV-TV reported that Dalton graduated
from Kalamazoo Valley Community College in 1992 with an associate's
degree in law enforcement and criminal justice but did not enroll at
the school's police academy.
He had no criminal record, authorities said.
(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York and Jon
Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Tom Brown and Peter Cooney)
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