A Kalamazoo County District judge says there's enough evidence to send mass shooting suspect Jason Brian Dalton to trial in Circuit Court.
The ruling came Friday after a hearing where Dalton had to be removed after an outburst. He's accused of fatally shooting six people and seriously wounding two more as he drove around Kalamazoo February 20.
Prosecutors called several witnesses, including shooting survivor Tiana Carruthers. She said Dalton had cut her off in his car as she walked with a group of children at her apartment complex in Richland, asked her if she was “Maisie” and then left.
“A couple of minutes go by and we don’t even make it to the park – almost, we’re like right there by the sidewalk. And I seen him coming, and I saw the gun,” she said.
At that point Dalton began to talk. Later he tried to stand up, causing Carruthers to break down on the witness stand. The hearing went into recess, sheriff's deputies dragged Dalton out of the courtroom and he watched the rest of the hearing from jail via a video link.
Carruthers was able to finish her testimony when the hearing resumed.
The prosecution also called 17-year-old Alexis Cornish. She testified that she was waiting in a car while her boyfriend Tyler Smith and his father looked at a vehicle at a dealership, when she saw Dalton walk up to the Smiths and shoot them.
“They looked at him and they put the hands up and they said, ‘what are you doing,’ and they fell down. And that’s when I ducked behind the seat so he couldn’t look at me,” Cornish said.
Dalton’s case will move from District to Circuit Court now that he’s been bound over.
