UNDATED (WKZO-AM) — Uber said it was horrified at the news that one of their drivers was committing a mass murder while on duty, but also said it has no plans to alter its driver-screening process.
They said Jason Dalton, 45, had been a driver for about a month, had given roughly 100 rides and was given a 4.73-out-of-5 rating by his passengers. They said the really serious complaints didn’t come in until the day of the shooting.
Passengers like Matt Mellen said Dalton drove like a maniac.
“We were kind of driving through medians, driving through the lawn, speeding along, then, finally, once he came to a stop, I jumped out of the car and ran away,” Mellen said.
The company’s security chief, Joe Sullivan, said Uber checks county, state and national criminal databases, and reviews financial records.
Dalton, in each of those searches, came up clean.
“As the local police made clear, the perpetrator had no criminal record,” Sullivan said. “And, if there’s nothing on someone’s record, then a background check is not going to raise a flag.”
He said there would be no point to changing their screening process.
The shootings in Kalamazoo aren’t expected to have much impact on legislation pending in Lansing that would subject the ride-share company to the same regulations as taxi operators.
– John McNeill
