At least six people killed in random Michigan shootings

A gunman killed six people and wounded two in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, in random parking lot shootings, police said on Sunday.

The gunman opened fire late on Saturday outside an apartment complex, a Kia car dealership and a Cracker Barrel restaurant over a period of little more than four hours, Kalamazoo police said on their Facebook page on Sunday.

A 14-year-old girl initially reported to have been shot at the restaurant, becoming the seventh fatality, was in fact wounded and is in serious condition, a prosecutor said.

The suspect Jason Dalton (45) is in custody and was “even tempered” when he was arrested in downtown Kalamazoo, police said.

A representative of car hailing service Uber confirmed that Mr Dalton was a company driver and that he had passed background checks. The representative referred questions about whether Mr Dalton was working at the time of the shootings to police.

“Victims were selected at random,” police said. They described the shootings in and near Kalamazoo, a city about 240km west of Detroit, as intentional but gave no motive.

"We seem to be dealing with a worst-case scenario, someone driving around shooting," Kalamazoo County Undersheriff Paul Matyas told NBC News after the shootings.

A semi-automatic pistol was found inside Mr Dalton’s vehicle. Police said he had no known criminal record.

The carnage began about 6pm on Saturday when a woman was wounded outside a Kalamazoo County apartment building. At about 10pm police were called to the car dealership where two people were killed and a third was wounded.

Four people were killed about 15 minutes later in a Cracker Barrel parking lot, where the gunman opened fire on people in their cars after a brief conversation, police said.

Police said surveillance video from businesses led to a description of Mr Dalton’s vehicle. The victims have not been identified.

Reuters