Sunday, February 21, 2016

Nicholas Godfrey Period 8: Uber driver picks up passengers between shootings

Summary: A man in Michigan went on a seven hour shooting spree in Michigan yesterday, killing six people and putting 2 in critical condition. There were a series of 3 different events in which he killed, including an apartment parking lot, the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel, and a car dealership. From what it appears right now, there was no clear motive as the killer knew none of the victims and it doesn't seem to be connected to any sort of terrorism. The scariest part of all of this was that not only was the shooter an Uber driver, he continued to pick up passengers in between each event, and he took them to their destination without any harm brought to any of those people whatsoever. According to his neighbors, he was married with two kids and was very peaceful and nice. They do say though that he always had an interest in guns. The man is now in custody and the police have seized all of the weapons from his house.

Analysis: This is very concerning to me as he didn't have a motive. He killed all of these random people but didn't do a single thing to the people that he picked up as an Uber driver. Why did he still go and pick these people up? Why was he still trying to make money? Did he not think that he would be caught? What drove (no pun intended) him to kill all of these people that he didn't know? This is clearly a very strange occurence. This made me think of when the German U-boats sank unarmed American ships just to prove that they had the ability to, without realizing that this event was going to end up being one of the main reasons that America joined into World War I.

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/21/us/michigan-kalamazoo-county-shooting-spree/index.html

2 comments:

  1. I recently used Uber for the first time a couple of weekends ago, and I think that it is very scary that his passengers could have been in danger. I know that Uber does background checks on their drivers. How come there were no red flags? How can someone just go on a shooting spree with no warning signs? There has to be something.

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  2. 1. He went on a mass shooting, I think it's qualified to considered terrorism.
    2. The most bizarre part about this whole incident was that he continued to bus people around as an Uber driver.
    3. We usually never learn the exact reason why people carry out attacks like these, all we can do if comfort the ones who are grieving and try to prevent the incident from happening again.

    Shelby Linker, 8th period

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