Scene of attack barricaded by the police
A man firing a shotgun and armed smoke grenades killed four journalists and a staffer at Maryland’s capital newspaper, then was swiftly taken into custody by police who rushed into the building.
Thursday’s attack on The Capital Gazette in Annapolis came amid months of verbal and online attacks on the “fake news media” from politicians and others from President Donald Trump on down. It prompted New York City police to immediately tighten security at news organizations in the nation’s media capital.
Police said the suspect in custody is a white man in his late 30s and had a long, acrimonious history with the newspaper, including a lawsuit and years of harassment of its journalists on Twitter.
A law enforcement official said the suspect was identified as Jarrod W. Ramos. The official was not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Tom Marquardt, retired publisher and top editor at the paper, told The Capital Gazette on Thursday that he had long been concerned about Ramos’ history of escalating social media attacks against the newspaper and its journalists.
Acting Police Chief William Krampf of Anne Arundel County called it a targeted attack in which the gunman “looked for his victims.”
“This person was prepared today to come in, this person was prepared to shoot people,” Krampf said.
Journalists crawled under desks and sought other hiding places in what they described as minutes of terror as they heard the gunman’s footsteps and the repeated blasts of the shotgun as he moved about the newsroom.
Police say the suspect of a shooting at a building housing a Maryland newspaper is in custody and being interviewed. Police announced that five people have been killed and as many as three have been injured. (June 28)
Those killed included Rob Hiaasen, 59, the paper’s assistant managing editor and brother of novelist Carl Hiaasen. Carl Hiaasen said he was “devastated and heartsick” at losing his brother, “one of the most gentle and funny people I’ve ever known.” Also slain were Gerald Fischman, editorial page editor; features reporter Wendi Winters; reporter John McNamara, and sales assistant Rebecca Smith. The newspaper said two other employees had non-life threatening injuries and were later released from a hospital.
Krampf said the gunman was a Maryland resident, but didn’t name him.
Separately, a law enforcement official said the suspect was identified as Jarrod W. Ramos. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Phil Davis, a courts and crime reporter for the paper, tweeted that the gunman shot out the glass door to the office and fired into the newsroom, sending people scrambling under desks.
“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,” he wrote in a tweet. In a later interview appearing on the paper’s online site, Davis likened the newspaper office to a “war zone.”
“I’m a police reporter. I write about this stuff — not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death — all the time,” he said. “But as much as I’m going to try to articulate how traumatizing it is to be hiding under your desk, you don’t know until you’re there and you feel helpless.” AP
