Earlier today, 5 people were killed and 3 injured when Jarrod W. Ramos allegedly entered the office of the Capital Gazette outside of Annapolis, MD with a shotgun. His motive was a long time grudge against former staff of the Capital Gazette due to what he claimed was an article that defamed him.

As a 2015 article in the paper summarized the dispute:

Jarrod Ramos of Laurel made the defamation claim in Prince George’s County Circuit Court in 2012 after a 2011 column by then-Capital staff writer Eric Hartley about Ramos’ guilty plea to criminal harassment.

The original article, published on July 31, 2011 under the title “Jarrod wants to be your friend,” described the stalking and harassment of a former high school peer after Ramos plead guilty on July 26, 2011 to “criminal harassment” before Judge Jonas Legum. His original sentence was suspended, and he was placed on probation and required to attend therapy.

The defamation case came before Judge Maureen Lamasney, and it was dismissed due to lack of merit, because the article was based on information available in the public record. One section of the ruling (available in the appeal case) is particularly interesting, a transcript of the original trial documenting a discussion between Ramos and Judge Lamasney:

Mr. Ramos: Your Honor, if I may say one more thing?

The Court: Go ahead.

Mr. Ramos: I would add that the public record from which that statement came from, was not even identified in the column, there was nothing to a lead a reader to understand where that statement was being taken from.

The Court: I understand that, but that does not make it false.

Mr. Ramos: But it makes it unfair.

The Court: I’m sorry, but I am going to dismiss your suit with prejudice.

Ramos appealed the ruling, and it came before Judge Thomas Moylan who wrote in his ruling: “A lawyer would almost certainly have told him not to proceed with this case. It reveals a fundamental failure to understand what defamation law is and, more particularly, what defamation law is not.”

In his conclusion, Judge Moylan pointed out, “The appellant was charged with a criminal act. The appellant perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant plead guilty to having perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant was punished for his criminal act. He is not entitled to equal sympathy with his victim… He does not appear to have learned his lesson.”

After losing his case, Ramos did not let the matter drop. As can be seen by his Twitter profile, Ramos created a website dedicated to criticizing the judge and the Capital Gazette, which can be seen here. It contains his version of a long standing dispute with the paper. In his final tweet just minutes before the 2:40 PM shooting, Ramos singled out Judge Thomas Moylan, who presided over his appeal (warning, intense language):

It is uncertain what provoked Ramos in these final moments. What is known is that neither of his lawsuit’s targets were still working for the Capital Gazette. Eric Hartley, the former staff writer, is now at the Virginia Pilot, and Tom Marquardt, the former publisher, retired in 2012. Additionally, the Capital Gazette was acquired by the Baltimore Sun in 2014, which marked a leadership change at the publication.

It has not yet been reported what caused Ramos to act out now after years of inactivity.