Uber driver says app made him go on killing spree

An Uber driver charged with fatally shooting six people in southwestern Michigan told investigators he was controlled by the ride-hailing app, through his phone, police said.

Jason Dalton told authorities, after the February 20 shootings in and around Kalamazoo, that “it feels like it is coming from the phone itself” and told of something “like an artificial presence”.

Dalton told officers that when you “plug into” the Uber app, “you can actually feel the presence on you.” He said the difference between the night of the shootings and others was that an icon on the Uber app, which is normally red, “had changed to black.”

He told investigators he “doesn’t want to come across as a crazy person,” and said he was sad for the people who were killed, as well as for his family, who “are going to have to hear all of this”. Dalton’s comments are in documents released by the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety and Kalamazoo County sheriff’s office, in response to public records requests. Dalton said that when he opened the Uber app, “a devil head popped up on his screen and when I pressed the button on the app, that is when all the problems started... the devil figure ... would give you an assignment”. Dalton is charged with murder and attempted murder, in the shootings outside an apartment complex, a restaurant, and at a car lot. Two people survived.