Popular ride service Uber said Monday it plans to stand by its policies despite one of the company's drivers being tied to a deadly shooting rampage Saturday in Kalamazoo that left six dead and two others gravely injured.
Uber Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan confirmed on a conference call with reporters that the company received multiple calls from customers the day of the shooting who complained about Jason Dalton's driving. Dalton, 45, of Cooper Township near Kalamazoo faces 16 charges, including six murder counts, two counts of assault with intent to murder and eight counts of felony firearm.
"On Saturday, we were contacted by several passengers and one gentleman complaining of dangerous and erratic driving," Sullivan said on a Monday conference call with reporters. "That passenger had already called 911 who responded later in the evening."
Uber user Matt Mellen told WWMT-TV in Kalamazoo that Dalton picked him up at around 4:30 p.m. Saturday. He said Dalton introduced himself as "Me-Me" and that he sat in front, since Dalton had his dog in the backseat. Mellen said he called 911 to complain about Dalton's driving.
But Sullivan said prior to the shootings, there were no "red flags" to suggest what would later happen. Sullivan said Dalton had a 4.73 rating out of five and there were no complaints tied to his driving record with the company. Sullivan did not say how long Dalton worked for the ride-service company and declined to release a chronology of what happened the night of the shooting.
"The perpetrator had no criminal record and if there's nothing on someone's record , no background check is going to raise a flag," Sullivan said. "As this case has shown, past behavior may not accurately predict how people will behave in the future."
In light of that, Sullivan said the company believes its safety protocols are efficient. Last July, Sullivan detailed the screening process for potential drivers in a post on the company's website.
"I don't think that we will change our screening process for drivers as a result of this incident," Sullivan said. "...I don't believe we will be contemplating on changing that. ... We believe that the screening process we have focuses on criminal history, motor vehicle checks and the like combined with the technology that's built into the app brings us the ability to in real time collect feedback before the rides and empower people to make decisions. Those kind of features are what we think is the best path forward in terms of investing in screening efforts."
And while Sullivan acknowledged that another market, India, does have a panic button capability within its app for safety or potential emergencies, he said the company doesn't plan to introduce that in the United States.
Sullivan said the company has two separate divisions--one that ciphers out concerned calls from users and another which directly works with law enforcement in investigations.
"In this case where we had a rider who called 911, that's exactly the behavior we would want rather than trying to build something into our apps in the United States," Sullivan said, adding that India doesn't have anything similar to 911.
In the U.S., Sullivan said, if a driver is reported for violence, that report would automatically result in an immediate suspension. But Sullivan said typically complaints about bad driving result in the company reaching out to the driver to handle the issue. Other safety measures in place include passengers being able to see details of the driver and any prior ratings before getting in the car. Sullivan said each car is GPS enabled and passengers can share their rides with family or friends in real time.
"Typically we talk to the driver first before suspension," Sullivan said. "That's because we get a lot of complaints for bad driving, not all of which turn out to be 100 percent fair or accurate."
But the San Francisco-based company has faced some scrutiny since its 2010 launch.
Uber drivers have been accused of kidnapping, rape, assault and theft involving their passengers. Yet there have been few — if any — that have been on the scale of the bloodshed that occurred Saturday night in Kalamazoo.
Several reported incidents have involved an older male driver and a younger female passenger.
• A 49-year-old Georgia man was arrested in January in the sexual assault of his 28-year-old Uber passenger and the burglary of her home.
• Dallas police in November arrested a 34-year-old Lyft driver for allegedly raping a woman passenger in his black Chevy Tahoe after the woman resisted his sexual advances.
• An incident in South Carolina last summer involved a 39-year-old Uber driver accused of kidnapping and raping a 23-year-old passenger in his vehicle. The woman, who survived the ordeal, was then struck by a car on a highway while trying to get help.
Yet, Uber Safety Advisory Board Member Margaret Richardson rebuffed suggestions that the company should consider a fingerprint-based background check system.
"It is a false premise that fingerprint-based background checks are more thorough," Richardson said. "They often include false positives when people are tested, but no charges are filed or are dropped. ..It can lead to incredible discriminating results. The background check and screening Uber has in place prevents that sort of discriminatory results from happening."
Free Press staff writer J.C. Reindl contributed to this report.
Contact Katrease Stafford: kstafford@freepress.com or 313-223-4759.
