Jarrod Ramos, suspect in Capital Gazette shooting, planned attack and blocked escape route

Bart Jansen | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Police on Capital Gazette shooting: 'This was a targeted attack' Police say the Capital Gazette newspaper shooting that left at least 5 people dead in Annapolis, Maryland was "a targeted attack."

The suspect in the shooting deaths of five people at a newspaper in Maryland planned the attack with a pump-action shotgun ahead of time and barricaded a door to prevent people from escaping, authorities said Friday.

Jarrod W. Ramos, 38, who was identified with facial-recognition technology, is accused of opening fire at the Capital Gazette office in Annapolis on Thursday. In addition to the deaths, two people were wounded.

At a court hearing Friday, District Court Judge Thomas Pryal ordered Ramos held without bail. "There is a certain likelihood you are a danger,” he said.

Anne Arundel County Police Chief Timothy Altomare said Friday that police are still accumulating evidence from the suspect’s car found near the scene of the shooting and his Laurel apartment. Altomare said police found planning materials for the attack, but not a manifesto explaining his reasons.

More than 300 officers from city, county, state and federal law enforcement agencies responded to the incident, he said. “We’re still putting puzzle pieces together,” Altomare told a news conference Friday. “We can’t fathom why that person chose to do this.”

Latest on the shooting:What we know now

Victims:'Gentle, generous and gifted' journalist Rob Hiaasen among those killed

Capital Gazette:'Yes, we’re putting out a damn paper'

Ramos was identified using facial-recognition technology because of a lag in fingerprint identification, but reports of the suspect altering his fingertips are incorrect, Altomare said.

“We have not been getting cooperation from the suspect,” he said.

The gunman hid rather than get into a shoot-out with police, Altomare said. Police arrived on the scene in about one minute and had the gunman cornered within another two minutes, he said.

“The fellow was there to kill as many people as possible,” Altomare said. “He didn’t run away, but he hid.”

The prosecutor, Wes Adams, Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney, called Ramos a danger to society because of evidence that he carefully planned the attack, barricaded the back door so victims couldn’t escape and used “a tactical approach in hunting down and shooting the innocent people.”

“There was one victim who attempted to escape through the back door and was shot," Adams said.

President Donald Trump said Friday: "This attack shocked the conscience of our nation, and filled our hearts with grief. Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job."

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.

Ramos is a 2006 graduate of Capitol College in Laurel, Md., which has been known as Capitol Technology University since 2014. CapTech is an independent four-year university in Maryland that trains engineers, information technology professionals that frequently enter federal careers.

“Ramos attended Capitol College and received a bachelor’s of science in computer engineering in August 2006,” said Robert Herschbach, a university spokesman.

Ramos was employed by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics as an IT contractor from 2007 to 2014, according to a Labor Department spokesman.

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

William Krampf of county police acknowledged that 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.

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.

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

Anthony Messenger, an intern at Capital Gazette, told NBC News’ TODAY Show Friday that he was in the newspaper’s office Thursday when a gunman opened fire, and nothing could have prepared him for it.

“Initially I thought it was fireworks,” Messenger said. “I heard a pop and I turned and looked over my shoulder toward the front of the room entrance and I saw some faces that looked concerned but I couldn’t see any shooter or anything.”

Security:Newsrooms across the country look at safety after shooting

Jarrod Ramos:Accused Capital Gazette shooter sued paper, held grudge

Scene:Reporter describes 'war zone' in Annapolis newsroom

One of his colleagues ran to a door, which Messenger said was never locked, but that was somehow jammed.

“I quickly realized this is a malicious situation, he’s (the gunman) here to do harm to us,” Messenger said. “I called the police … and I was not able to talk to them. I didn’t feel that I could do that in a manner that wouldn’t tip off our position to the shooter … once he (the shooter) moved away from us … I decided to text my friend, I said ‘Please call the police, I’m in trouble.’… In that moment I thought I was going to die.”

Later, Messenger said walking out of the building was chaotic.

“Unfortunately we had to pass two bodies of our colleagues which was something that nobody should ever have to stomach,” he said. “I think just the sheer chaos of it all, people were too caught up in trying to get to safety to realize ‘okay this is a man that we have a prior history with.’”

Contributing: Sean Rossman, Mike James, Nick Penzenstadler