KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM) — The Detroit Free Press reported this weekend that accused mass murderer Jason Dalton showed signs of an unstable personality before last month’s shooting rampage in Kalamazoo, but most people wrote it off as just having a bad temper.
The information came from documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Dalton, 45, is being held for shooting eight and killing six last month across Kalamazoo.
A former co-worker at the insurance firm where Dalton worked told police he would occasionally lose his temper and yell at customers and others. He said Dalton didn’t appear to have any conflict resolution skills and took things personally.
One auto repair operator who ran afoul of that temper told the newspaper they had never seen anyone act so unprofessionally.
Some of Dalton customers on the day of the shooting, and others who witnessed his driving, said he drove at high speeds, recklessly at times. Other customers say he seemed a little depressed but otherwise normal.
The newspaper reports Dalton was seen driving recklessly, seeming to be lost just before a pick up at the Meadows Townhomes that he never did complete because the woman who called for him changed the address of the pick-up from her apartment to the main office of the complex.
When he finally did arrive at the first address he was given, he asked Tiana Carruthers if she knew the woman he was looking for. She said no.
Witnesses told police Dalton made one more pass around the complex and then he opened fire at Carruthers, shooting ten bullets, hitting her four times as she shielded a group of children walking with her.
It would be four hours before the next shootings occurred on Stadium Drive on the other side of Kalamazoo. Fifteen minutes later, four were left dead and a 14-year-old was critically wounded in a shooting at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Texas Township.
