Maryland police say Jarrod Ramos, the man charged with killing five people at the offices of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, sent three threatening letters on the day of the attack, including one that said he was on his way to the paper to “kill as many people” as he could.



Mourning continued in Annapolis on Tuesday, marked by a lowering of US flags. Donald Trump ordered flags flown at half-staff on federal property through sunset.

The Annapolis mayor, Gavin Buckley, said on Monday that the president, who has repeatedly called journalists the “enemy of the people”, declined his request to lower the flags. The White House said on Tuesday that Trump ordered flags lowered as soon as he learned of the mayor’s request.

The shooting happened last Thursday. Sgt Jacklyn Davis, a spokeswoman for Anne Arundel county police, said the threatening letters were received on Monday.

Police found the 38-year-old suspect hiding under a desk and jailed him on five counts of first-degree murder. He has a well-documented history of harassing the paper’s journalists. He filed a defamation suit in 2012 that was thrown out as groundless and often railed against them in tweets.



Tom Marquardt, former publisher of the Capital Gazette, said Ramos sent a letter to a company lawyer saying he was on his way “to kill as many people” as he could. The letter was dated 28 June – the day of the deadly attack.

“In that letter, he was talking to the appeals court judge and suggesting that he didn’t do a very good job on the case and as a result he was going to have to take out his vengeance in a different way,” Marquardt said.

Letters were also sent to a Baltimore judge and a judge at the Maryland court of special appeals.

Marquardt said he once slept with a baseball bat by his bed because he was so worried. He also said the paper “stepped up security” years ago and posted the suspect’s photo around the office.

“But then he went dormant for about two years and we thought the problem has been solved,” he said. “Apparently it was just building up steam.”

On Monday night, an overflow crowd gathered to remember Rob Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters with stories, poems, prayers and songs. The Baltimore-based novelist Anne Tyler, a friend of Hiaasen, was there. “I loved him dearly,” she said. “I thought he was smart and funny and wise.”

Carl Hiaasen, a prolific novelist and longtime Miami Herald columnist, on Friday described his younger brother as “a person of phenomenal grace”.