I thought this would be a local story but I see it all over the national news so…
Note: they believe they have the suspect in custdy.
The people seem to have been shot randomly all over the county- mostly in parking lots.
WMU students are slamming the school for not issuing a safety alert.
I felt like throwing up when I heard the news. Mr R is from west Michigan, very close to Kzoo. We have a LOT of friends at WMU and in the Kzoo area.
Sad and horrible.
I have friends there, too. 
Hope they’re all safe, @intparent
So much needless bloodshed and heartache. I’m so sad and sorry for all. Why can’t we as a society and world please fix this?
Because we as a society don’t want to fix this.
Just saw this. I’m with you Romani - makes you sick. S and his fiance are in that area often visiting friends - people hanging out at Cracker Barrel and such aren’t thinking they are in a position to have to be concerned about being shot.
Creepy. Terrible. Heartbreaking. Disturbing. All of it.
It is awful. I do wonder why people thought the school had an obligation to issue a safety alert, though, for something that I assume was not happening on its campus (if it was on the campus, then by law they were required to send an alert). I am sure crimes happen regularly in areas that are frequented by WMU students, and the school is not required to alert students to those. I don’t mean to make light of a terrible situation, but this was not a school issue. Yes, the school should be concerned … but their emergency system is intended for threats on school property. The local police broadcast info about local threats, and concerned students should sign up for local emergency alerts.
Because the shooting seem to be random and varied in city locales (as far as I understand it) I would think it had to be ALL OVER the law enforcement communications systems so it would have been maybe just “the right thing to do” to alert the students - just as you would alert the community through radio, tv, etc. Say that there is an apparent random shooter moving around the city and to stay out of public areas or something like that.
It’s pretty standard to send safety alerts even about off-campus things. I get alerts all the time about robberies and whatnot in Ann Arbor (and previously in East Lansing) off campus. Since last night they had NO idea what this guy was doing, where he was going, I think it would have been very wise to issue a safety alert to students (most of whom live off campus).
This is a terrible tragedy and I am heartbroken about the shooting. We got an amber alert on Saturday morning at 2:30 am that was in Detroit. Now I feel terrible about it but we live 4 hours from Detroit. I have no idea why we got it when we are so far away. And at 2:30 am! But a mass shooting, nada! Nothing! I’m sorry it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
BTW, I don’t live in Kalamazoo but it is closer than Detroit.
Update: supposedly the suspect is an Uber driver and a woman posted last night before the shootings that he was driving extremely erratically and put her fiance’s life in danger. She called 911 but they didn’t seem to care:
Just saw that he was an Uber driver - gulping even more as S and fiance and friends use Uber often when in Kalamazoo. Uber is so great - except when it isn’t.
I’ve been watching MSNBC all morning and nothing about this. Horrible. . . I hate hearing about these kinds of shooting. It’s so senseless.
I was watching CNN last night (election coverage) and it was all over. It’s still on the front page but I haven’t watched the news at all today.
It was just so random… living close to Detroit, I’m used to hearing about innocent bystanders being killed by stray bullets (that is not a sentence anyone should ever have to write), but for just random people to be targeted all over town? Bizarre. Horrifically bizarre.
The names of the victims were just released.
Most of them were from Battle Creek (city just outside of Kalamazoo), the same town Mr R is from.
http://fox17online.com/2016/02/21/victims-kalamazoo-shooting/
This story is so sad, on so many levels. I don’t like the fact that the media is running this as an Uber driver did xyz. Sure enough he happened to drive for uber, but the headlines would lead one to believe he murdered his passengers. I’m tired of the sensational headlines.
Has any reason been given for why he did it?
Nope. No reason.
party, I agree with you about headlines and in local news they’re calling him the Kalamazoo shooter rather than Uber. With that said, he was picking up fares in between the shootings which is probably why, at least partially, they’re calling him the Uber shooter or whatever.
This Time article shares that he apparently received an “odd” phone call with this passenger. I’d have to wonder what that phone call was and what happened between dropping this guy off and the first incident.
http://time.com/4232391/kalamazoo-shooting-uber-passenger/?xid=time_socialflow_facebook