Uber failed to prioritize safety complaint on Kalamazoo shooter before rampage

• Passenger reported Jason Dalton to ride-share company and called 911
• Safety screeners did not prioritize complaint since it wasn’t about violence

Nellie Bowles in San Francisco
Monday 22 February 2016 23.59 GMT

Uber received and did not act on a complaint that Uber driver Jason Dalton had been “driving dangerously” before he went on to shoot and kill six people on Saturday night in Michigan.

The rider, Matt Mellen, reported Dalton for erratic driving and said he had called 911 after “jumping” out of the car. Uber this afternoon confirmed they had not reviewed the feedback, which came in four hours before the first victim was killed.

“We got about a mile from my house, and he got a telephone call. After that call, he started driving erratically, running stop signs,” Mellen told CNN affiliate WWMT. “We were kind of driving through medians, driving through the lawn speeding along and then finally, once he came to a stop, I jumped out of the car and ran away.”

“He said the gentleman was driving erratically,” the spokesperson said, pausing: “Remember we’re doing 3 million rides a day. How do you prioritize that feedback and how do you think about it?”

Because the complaint was about erratic driving rather than being explicitly about violence, Uber’s safety screeners didn’t prioritize it.

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