Psychiatrist: Some Disorders Don't Appear Until Mid-Life

DETROIT (WWJ) - Forty-five-year old Uber driver, Jason Dalton of Kalamazoo County, is in police custody after a series of random shootings in the Kalamazoo area left six-people dead.

Although Dalton didn't have a criminal record-- did he have mental health problems? Although not familiar with Jason Dalton's personal situation, Birmingham psychiatrist, Dr. Gerald Shiener says some ailments don't appear until middle age.

"Sometimes mania, or bipolar disorder or what we call schizoaffective disorder, has an onset much later and that's in mid-life - sometime in the late thirties or forties or even later so that illness can start and we don't know anything about this man - we don't know if there was a history and this means that it takes much more than gun laws to stop this kind of tragedy," said Shiener.

Shiener says Dalton's behavior, as reported in the media, tends to fit the pattern of people who are poised to snap.

He says in cases like this often there is something that slights the person- there's a personal failure, loss of a job, failure of a marriage, something happens that opens them up and that makes their psyche more vulnerable to losing control.

Shiener says signs that someone could be poised for such behavior include poor sleep, hinting that something big is going to happen, losing their temper in public, or suddenly failing to show up for work.

Authorities believe Dalton chose victims at random -- shooting people in the parking lots of a western Michigan apartment complex, car dealership and restaurant, killing at least six and seriously injuring two others – including a 14-year-old girl – during a rampage and subsequent manhunt that spanned nearly seven hours, authorities said.