The Kalamazoo County Sheriff saw the bodies Uber driver Jason Dalton left behind. The children he targeted. The trauma still resonates a decade later.
Fuller can’t even drive by a car dealership without being haunted by what he witnessed on Feb. 20, 2016.
That night, Dalton, 45, opened fire at three locations across the county – including a car dealership and a Cracker Barrel – killing six and critically wounding two others.
None of the eight victims were his passengers – or known to him.
As the 10-year anniversary of the massacre approaches this month, Fuller said “this is never out of my mind.”
When questioned, he blamed it on his Uber app, saying it was taking control of his vehicles and his body. Dalton eventually pleaded guilty and is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at Oaks Correctional Facility in Manistee.
Dalton’s attorney, Eusebio Solis, said his client entered the plea because he didn’t want to put his family or the victims’ families through a trial.
Still, they – like others involved in that night – remain scarred by one of the most high-profile atrocities in county history.
‘Heroism’ saves lives in first shooting
The mobile mass shooting began at 5:42 p.m. that Saturday when Dalton, while searching for an Uber fare request, pulled up in his silver Chevrolet Equinox and fired 15 rounds at Tiana Carruthers.
Carruthers, then 25, had been walking children to the Meadows Townhomes playground in Richland Township. Dalton asked if she was the person who requested the fare. She said no. He circled back and started shooting.
She was struck four times – but survived.
“These things don’t happen like this,” said Fuller, who was presenting at a dinner when he was informed of the shooting.
Carruthers’ actions, shielding her daughter and four other children, was an act of “pure heroism” and “prevented even more tragic results,” Fuller recounted.
Carruthers, in previous interviews, dismissed her actions as heroic, saying she did what any mother would do in that situation.
Already on the lookout for Dalton
Fuller’s deputies and neighboring police departments had already been searching for Dalton and his silver Equinox.
An hour earlier, an Uber passenger reported Dalton drove into oncoming traffic and sideswiped a Ford Taurus.
The passenger, who had shared Dalton’s photo with dispatch, was able to get out safely.
Within a minute of leaving the shooting scene at the Meadows, Dalton was involved in a second crash after running a red light. Like in the first crash, he didn’t stop.
Dalton fled to his parents’ home a mile away to meet his wife and swap vehicles.
There, he lied, telling his wife he’d been sideswiped and shot at. He told her it was not safe for her or their two kids to return to the family’s Cooper Township home.
He retrieved a handgun from his father’s closet, loaded it and gave it to her.
Before leaving in his wife’s black Chevrolet HHR, Dalton told her he couldn’t say what was going on, but that it would be on the news later.
“My name won’t be on TV, but you will know it’s me,” he said.
‘Something happened. And I don’t know what.’
Dalton went to his home in Cooper Township, trading the Glock he used to shoot Carruthers for a Walther P99 handgun.
At 7:37 p.m., he headed back out to work, picking up three Uber fares over the next two hours.
Each of the passengers would later be interviewed by investigators.
None noticed anything unusual about Dalton.
Dalton was “just your average Joe,” former Kalamazoo Public Safety Chief Jeff Hadley said. He was an insurance adjuster. He had a family. And he had zero prior criminal history.
“He would have been a guy that, maybe if he was your neighbor, you would cook hamburgers with on the weekend,” Hadley said. “But something happened. And I don’t know what that something was.”
Another shooting, two dead
At 10:01 p.m. Dalton pulled into the Seelye Kia dealership on Stadium Drive, parked and exited his vehicle.
Three minutes earlier, Richard Smith, 53, and his son Tyler Smith, 17, of Mattawan, had done the same. They were there to look at vehicles after hours.
At 10:05 p.m., Dalton approached them and asked what they were looking at.
Before either could answer, Dalton fired 18 rounds, killing them both, while Tyler’s girlfriend, Alexis Cornish hid in the family’s Range Rover.
Richard’s widow, Laurie Smith, still wakes up every day hoping it was just a nightmare.
She’s found it harder over time – not easier – to exist without her husband and son, she said.
“It’s only because of Jesus Christ that I have been able to move on,” Laurie Smith said.
One more shooting, four more dead
At 10:17 p.m., while police were still responding to the dealership, Dalton was already 4 miles away outside the since-shuttered Cracker Barrel in Texas Township.
There, he approached two vehicles, first killing Mary Lou Nye, 62, of Baroda, as she sat behind the wheel of her Oldsmobile minivan.
Next, he approached a Chevrolet Cruze and fired 17 more rounds, killing Mary Jo Nye, 60, Dorothy “Judy” Brown, 74, and Barbara Hawthorne, 68, all of Battle Creek.
Dalton also critically wounded Hawthorne’s granddaughter, Abigail Kopf, 14.
At 10:18 p.m., he left the scene.
Kopf was initially pronounced dead, but managed to survive.
Hadley believes if his officers at the Cracker Barrel scene weren’t cross-trained as medics, Kopf wouldn’t be alive today.
‘We were sure he would be striking again’
After two shootings in 13 minutes, units from all area police departments were coming together, converging on the scenes at Seelye Kia and Cracker Barrel.
“Everybody was working together as one unit,” Fuller said. “We were working as fast and as furiously as we could to get information out, trying to share with the media and trying to make sure that we had people in the right spot looking for the suspect.
“We were sure he would be striking again.”
It was obvious now they were dealing with one suspect, Fuller said. Video footage from Seelye also made it clear it was the same suspect from the Richland Township shooting.
While police worked, Dalton was headed home, again to reload.
Fuller headed downtown. He still remembers the drive on the unseasonably warm February night.
“I just remember … how I had my window down and how sick to my stomach I was with the scene I just left at Cracker Barrel,” Fuller said.
He accepted a ride request, picked up three passengers and dropped them off at a Western Michigan University dorm. He then picked up more passengers at Bell’s Brewery and drove them the short distance to the Radisson Plaza Hotel downtown.
Next, he headed south down the Kalamazoo Mall, picking up a fare from the former Central City Taphouse and driving them to Rugger’s Up and Under bar.
Passengers from his last two rides jokingly asked if he was the shooter police were looking for.
“Wow, that is crazy. No way. I’m not the guy,” Dalton said, according to police reports.
A few minutes after dropping that last fare off, Dalton pulled out of the Rugger’s parking lot.
One of Fuller’s sergeants spotted the car, followed him and called for backup.
Relief and sorrow
Four minutes later, at 12:40 a.m., Dalton was pulled over without incident at Ransom and Porter streets by the sergeant and a trailing KDPS officer.
Fuller pulled up to see the arrest unfold. He hung back, gun drawn, expecting a firefight. When it didn’t come, he thought they might have the wrong guy.
“The relief of catching this person and the sorrow for all those victims in this community struck pretty hard, pretty quick,” Fuller said. “In the 10 years since, I can’t think of a time I’ve gone by a dealership, or I’ve gone by the Up and Under or attended something downtown where this is not in my head.
“That won’t go away.”
