5 killed in ‘targeted attack’ on Capital Gazette newspaper, police say

Show Caption Hide Caption 5 dead, several 'gravely injured' in Capital Gazette newspaper shooting At least five people are dead after a shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – A gunman with a grudge against the Capital Gazette opened fire in the newsroom here on Thursday, killing five people in what police are calling a "targeted attack" on the newspaper.

Armed with a shotgun and smoke grenades, the shooter "was prepared to shoot people. His intent was to cause harm," William Krampf, acting police chief of Anne Arundel County, said at a news conference.

Police had not named the suspect Thursday evening, but a law enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to discuss the case publicly, identified the suspect as Jarrod Ramos, 38, of Laurel, Maryland.

Court documents show Ramos filed a defamation suit against the newspaper in 2012, but a judge threw out the lawsuit, saying Ramos "fails to come close to alleging a case of defamation." A Maryland appeals court upheld the ruling.

Authorities surrounded an apartment complex connected to Ramos on Thursday evening in a small neighborhood in Laurel, Maryland. Police taped off the area near Ramos' small side street Thursday evening as helicopters flew overhead.

Krampf acknowledged threats had been made as recently as Thursday to the newspaper via social media that "indicated violence," but it was not clear whether they came from the suspect.

Crime reporter Phil Davis, who took cover under a desk at the height of the melee, described the scene to The Baltimore Sun, which which owns the newspaper, as "like a war zone."

The five victims, all employees of the newspaper, were assistant editor and columnist Rob Hiaasen, special publications editor Wendi Winters, writer John McNamara, editorial page editor Gerald Fischman and sales assistant Rebecca Smith.

Officers arrived on the scene within 60 seconds of initial report, Anne Arundel police spokesman Lt. Ryan Frashure said.

County Executive Steve Schuh said the suspect had put his weapon down and was hiding in the building under a desk when police found him. He described the suspect as "not being particularly forthcoming" with police.

Some media reported the suspect was identified through facial recognition software and that he mutilated his fingers to obscure his identification.

Krampf said police had "no information about facial recognition or his fingerprints" and added that it was an ongoing investigation. Frashure denied reports the suspect altered his fingerprints. "We spoke with our detectives. They had no idea where that information came from. It's not true."

Krampf added that the gunman used canisters of smoke grenades when he entered the building. About 170 people were evacuated from the site. Two people suffered superficial wounds, police said.

More: Capital Gazette shooting in Annapolis: What we know now

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Ramos pleaded guilty in July 2011 on a charge of criminal harassment and got a 90-day suspended jail sentence. Five days later, the Capital ran a story by staff writer Eric Thomas Hartley under the headline "Jarrod wants to be your friend."

The story described a harrowing situation of a woman who was continually harassed by Ramos after he contacted her on Facebook. A Maryland appeals court concluded that everything printed in the newspaper story about Ramos appeared to be true.

Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley was in a meeting when a receptionist came in and informed him about the shooting, he told USA TODAY. More than 100 emergency responders rushed to the scene in what he called "a very collective effort."

"This thing for us is very personal because the journalists who work there, a lot of them are friends of ours. It's a thankless job and they don’t make a lot of money. It's not like the publication is some right-wing or left-wing thing. It's a publication that reports good local news from stories on local sports teams to cats stuck up a tree," Buckley said. "I hope this is not an attack on journalism."

Buckley also praised the professionalism of the police. "They had to step over bodies to find the shooter," he added.

The Capital Gazette's Davis described the horror in a series of tweets, saying that a gunman "shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees."

"There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you're under your desk and then hear the gunman reload," Davis tweeted.

The Sun subsequently interviewed Davis who described the scene.

"I'm a police reporter. I write about this stuff – not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death all the time," Davis told The Sun. "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."

Gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees. Can't say much more and don't want to declare anyone dead, but it's bad. — Phil Davis (@PhilDavis_CG) June 28, 2018

The newspaper is in the middle of a busy stretch of Annapolis, where the Annapolis Plaza, the Westgate Annapolis mall and the Anne Arundel Medical Center meet.



Mary Feeley called it a "Sept. 11 feeling" when a person from a nearby store came into her bridal boutique and told her to lock her doors.

Two doors down from the bridal store, Home Goods employees hardly noticed but were taken by the fatal attack just yards away.

“Crazy usually escapes Annapolis,” said Dorothy Harbold Klipper, a Home Goods employee and a Capital Gazette subscriber since the 1960s.

Journalists across the country rushed to show their support, launching fundraisers and offering encouragement, and applauding when Capital Gazette reporters insisted on staying on the job despite the tragedy.

Chase Cook, a Capital Gazette reporter who wasn’t in the building when the shooting occurred, tweeted, "I can tell you this. We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow."

Photojournalist Joshua McKerrow also struck a defiant note: "There will be a Capital Friday," he tweeted.

The Capital Gazette offices house two newspapers, one of which is the oldest in the country. The Maryland Gazette was founded by a British journalist in 1727. The Capital was founded in Annapolis in 1884 by a former judge of the Anne Arundel County orphans court.

The shooting also sent newsrooms around the country on high alert over security concerns. New York City police dispatched units to media outlets across the city to guard against potential copycat or coordinated attacks. New York Police Department spokesman Peter Donald said Thursday dozens of locations were getting extra cover.

Police in Chicago, Los Angeles and Nashville also took additional security precautions.

Buckley, who took office just seven months ago, told USA TODAY this is the last thing he imagined he would have to confront as the mayor of a small town.

"I can't imagine what the families are going through, he said. "We feel for them. We grieve for them."

Gov. Larry Hogan sent condolences via Twitter: "Absolutely devastated to learn of this tragedy in Annapolis." President Donald Trump did as well, tweeting his "thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families."

Tom Marquardt, the former executive editor of The Capital, posted on Facebook that the shooting is "impossible to grasp."

"I can't even fathom with any degree of understanding what happened at my old newspaper today," Marquardt said. "The Capital, like all newspapers, angered people every day in its pursuit of the news. In my day, people protested by writing letters to the editor; today it's through the barrel of a gun."

He said occasional threats on newspapers are inevitable. But the deadly consequences of Thursday's attack bring a new dimension to such risks.

"Sure, I had death threats and the paper had bomb threats," Marquardt said. "But we shrugged them off as part of the business we were in. We prided ourselves in being an open newsroom, available to anyone to visit. What happened today could have happened in any newsroom. Now, I'm getting calls from reporters asking for background for obits of people who I hired and worked beside."

Contributing: Kevin Johnson, Trevor Hughes, Caroline Simon, Mike James, Susan Miller, Joel Shannon and WUSA-TV, Washington.