KALAMAZOO, Mich. — It has now been a full seven years since Kalamazoo County was spun into a terrifying chaos at the hands of an Uber driver on a shooting rampage.
Six people lost their lives and another two were critically injured on the evening of February 20th, 2016.
Richard Smith, 53, and his son Tyler, 17, were killed at a car dealership in Kalamazoo.
Later that night, Mary Jo Nye, 60, Mary Lou Nye, 62, Dorothy Brown, 74, and Barbara Hawthorne, 68, were all killed in the parking lot of the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Oshtemo.
Abby Kopf, 14, was critically wounded at that scene as well, undergoing years of surgeries following the shooting.
Tianna Carruthers suffered four gunshot wounds earlier in the day while shielding a group of children, and has recovered.
Jason Dalton is now serving life in prison after being convicted in 2019.
Matt Mellen filed a lawsuit against Uber and Jason Dalton in September 2021.
That lawsuit is ongoing.
According to their filing, Mellen attempted to contact Uber's 24/7 on-call response team to let them know that "Dalton was/ had become a danger to Matt Mellen, society, and that Uber's driver, Dalton, needed to be deactivated immediately."
Mellen's lawsuit alleges that Uber did not have the 24/7 incident response team they claimed to on their website, which Mellen was trying to reach.
According to the lawsuit, because they allegedly falsely claimed to have that safety system in place, when they did not, "the guilt kicks in for Matt Mellen; the re-living of the events of that day and night in excruciating, painful detail; the feeling of total helplessness, the sense of being thoroughly defrauded over there being no way to connect with Uber and stop the Uber driving, the Uber driver's crimes, the shootings, the killings."
