Accused Newspaper Gunman's Rampage Was Almost 8 Years In Making

ANNAPOLIS, MD — The gunman charged with five counts of murder after opening fire at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis sought to kill as many people as possible by barricading a door in the back of the newsroom from the outside so that people working inside would be trapped when he began his shooting spree, officials said Friday as they provided more details of the attack.

The suspect, Jarrod Ramos, 38, of Laurel, was apparently seeking revenge for a 2011 article the Capital Gazette published about a criminal case against him for harassing a former high school classmate so severely she feared for her life. The article correctly reported that Ramos pleaded guilty to criminal harassment and admitted to using social media and email to spook the woman. Ramos was enraged by the article about his case, claiming it was filled with lies that damaged his reputation.

In response, Ramos began a harassment campaign against Capital Gazette reporters and editors. He weaponized the internet, creating a Twitter account specifically dedicated to harassing the journalists, quickly immersing himself in creating hundreds of posts, many of which included real names he connected to false information connecting them to "verified" criminal corruption or other wrongdoings.

Ramos is not believed to have posted any direct threats of physical violence but he seems to have come close. He has, for example, posted accounts of journalists who have been killed and he has offered the names of journalists he would most like to see dead.

Some Capital Gazette executive and staffesr, had long feared such posts indicated that Ramos was unhinged enough to mount an attack just like the one in their newsroom Thursday, which left five of their colleagues dead.

During a Friday bail hearing, prosecutors offered the account of Ramos blocking the newsroom door as evidence of his brutality.Ramos shot one of the victims who tried to escape through the door he had barricaded.

He "executed a brutal series of attacks on innocent victims,” said State's Attorney Wes Adams, and a judge agreed that Ramos was a danger to the community, ordering he be kept in jail to await trial.

Ramos burst into the newspaper Thursday afternoon with a 12-gauge pump action shotgun and opened fire, killing five people and wounding at least two others as journalists took cover under their desks and then tweeted raw, real-time accounts of the attack. Anne Arundel County Police Chief Timothy Altomare said that Ramos bought the gun legally in Maryland; the suspect had no felony convictions that would have prohibited the gun purchase.

Altomare said at a Friday morning press conference — which he began by noting that he would not speak Ramos' name — that a search of Ramos' Laurel apartment showed evidence of the suspect's planning. There is no indication that he had help from others. Within two minutes of the first shooting report, officers had cornered the suspect, who hid under a desk in the office. No shots were fired by police during the incident.

“The fellow was there to kill as many people as he could,” Altomare said.

President Trump on Friday called the attacks "horrific" in his opening remarks before talking about tax cuts and the economy.

"This attack shocked the conscience of our nation, and filled our hearts with grief," Trump said. "Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job. To the families of the victims there are no words to express our sorrow for your loss. ... My government will not rest until we have done everything in our power to reduce violent crime and to protect innocent life."

SEE ALSO: Editor Had Feared Suspect As 'Crazy Enough' To 'Blow Us All Away'

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• Annapolis Shooting: Here Are The 5 Capital Gazette Victims

Community Vigils, Shows of Support

Annapolis leaders and clergy have organized three vigils Friday to mourn the slain newspaper employees. The Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis will hold a vigil at 333 Dubois Road from 4 to 7 p.m. for its faith community. Then, area clergy plan to hold a prayer vigil at 7 p.m. in the Westfield Annapolis Mall parking lot in front of the Pottery Barn.

Anne Arundel County Indivisible and local law enforcement have planned a third vigil that will begin at 8 p.m. at Lawyers Mall and walk to Susan Campbell Park at the end of City Dock, according to the event post on Facebook. Participants are asked to bring candles, posters, prayers, and copies of Friday’s issue of the Capital Gazette.

And Annapolis resident Jody Couser is urging everyone in the city to follow her lead and wrap a black band around their newspaper delivery box. "It is only a symbolic gesture, of course, but I think a meaningful one, if all subscribers were to wrap a black band or ribbon around their paper box," she said.

She suggested Annapolis area residents who are not a newspaper subscriber show their support by becoming one. You can sign up here.

Social Media Threats, Rants

The first tangible event that spiraled into the mass shooting came on July 31, 2011, when the paper published a story about Ramos. Written by Eric Thomas Hartley, a staff writer and columnist, the story detailed how Ramos had used social media and email in a year-long barrage of threats against a former classmate that were so chilling she feared for her life. Her attorney says that even though she has since moved out of state, and with Ramos now in jail, his client still fears the accused mass shooter.

The attorney, Brennan McCarthy of Annapolis, represented the woman in the harassment cases, and said she moved out of Maryland because she was afraid for her life. The harassment and stalking began in 2009 after Ramos contacted the woman through Facebook and went on to harass her with threats and vulgar insults. In 2011 she filed a harassment charge against Ramos, he pleaded guilty, and was given 18 months probation.

"He was as angry an individual as I've ever seen," McCarthy told CBS News. "She lost her job because of this individual. He's malevolent. He forwarded a letter to her employer basically stating that she was bipolar and a drunkard, which is ridiculous."

The Capital article on the case that set off Ramos appeared under the headline,"Jarrod Wants To Be Your Friend."

"Mr. Ramos was obsessively angry about this particular story," McCarthy said, adding that when he heard about Thursday's shooting, he knew the gunman was Ramos.

"He did it. It was inevitable. He was going to do something violent, the only question was who would he get first," McCarthy said.

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In 2012 Ramos sued the Capital claiming the article defamed his, but the case was dismissed by a Maryland circuit court judge and an appeal Ramos filed was rejected in 2015 a panel of judges who agreed with the lower court that nothing in the newspaper story was false.

"He waged a one-person attack on anything he could muster in court against the Capital," Tom Marquardt, the newspaper's editor and publisher until 2012, told the Los Angeles Times following the shooting.

He was more concerned, though, about the internet tirades Ramos began posting on the internet , so much so that he feared for his lief and the safety of his staff.

Ramos created a Twitter page that featured a picture of Hartley, the article's author. Still seething with anger years after his plea, Ramos posted stories about violence against other reporters, including the 2015 attack at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris that left 12 people dead and the shooting of two Virginia television journalists killed on live television later that year.

In 2012, Ramos tweeted a picture of Marquardt with Sen. Barbara Mikulski.

"Stay away from him @senbarb," Ramos wrote. "He's DOOM. I watched you at the gates of Journalistic Hell. Don't believe me? Check a map."

In a 2015 post, Ramos wrote: "I'll enjoy seeing @capgaznews cease publication, but it would be nicer to see Hartley and Marquardt cease breathing."

SEE ALSO: Annapolis Shooting: 5 Murder Counts Filed In Capital Gazette Case

"I said during that time, 'This guy is crazy enough to come in and blow us all away,'" Marquardt recalled, adding that he and other newspaper officials had fretted over how to stop Ramos' harassment.

Police couldn't arrest Ramos for his behavior toward the newspaper, and the paper was reluctant to sue him in court. "The theory back then was, 'Let's not infuriate him more than I have to.… The more you agitate this guy, the worse it's gonna get.'"

In a separate interview with the Virginian-Pilot, Marquardt said police didn't believe they had a case.

"I felt personally threatened by the guy," Marquardt said. "I was worried about my well-being, my wife's well-being, and the staff's. We were all concerned at the time."

Police spokesman Ryan Frashure urged anyone with information on the shooting or cellphone images from the attack to call 410-222-4731 or 410-222-4700 to reach the department's 24-hour anonymous tip line.

In honor of the five slain newspaper staffers, Gov. Larry Hogan ordered Maryland flags to be lowered to half-staff until sunset on Monday, July 2.

“With the lowering of the Maryland flag, we honor the dedicated journalists of our hometown newspaper in our state’s capital. To the family, friends, and colleagues at the Capital Gazette and its parent company, the Baltimore Sun, you have the deepest sympathies of a state in mourning,” said Governor Hogan. “There is no amount of clarity that will ever explain or nullify the pain that comes with losing so many lives for so little reason; journalism is a noble profession upon which our democracy depends, and we will fight to defend it.”

The Victims Identified

One of the five newspaper employees killed in the attack was Rob Hiaasen, a former award-winning feature writer with the Baltimore Sun and Palm Beach Post who joined the Capital as an assistant editor in 2010 and wrote a Sunday column. He had also taught at the University of Maryland. His brother is the novelist and Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen.

“I just want people to know what an in­cred­ibly gentle, generous and gifted guy my brother was,” Carl Hiaasen told The Washington Post.

“He was a philosopher and a poet,” said Tina Reed, a former Capital reporter. “He was a coach, and he was a mentor. He wanted to teach young journalists to be better.”

In addition to Hiaasen, 59, Krampf identified those killed as:

• Wendi Winters, 65, community news reporter and columnist
• Rebecca Smith, 34, sales assistant
• Gerald Fischman, 61, editorial writer and editorial page editor
• John McNamara, 56, sports reporter

The newspaper published its Friday edition despite the attack and so many reporters having been in the newsroom during the attack.

Phil Davis, a courts and crime reporter for the paper, had taken to Twitter to give a harrowing account of the attack as it unfolded. A single shooter opened fire and shot his colleagues, he wrote, "some of whom are dead." Davis said in a series of tweets that the gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on employees there.

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

SEE ALSO:

• Annapolis Shooting: Reporter Hid, Reported From Bloody 'War Zone'
• 'Devasting': Reaction To Gunman's Shooting At Capital Gazette
• Mass Shootings In Maryland: Newspaper, Workplace, Mall
• How To Help Capital Gazette Victims, Staff After Shootings

Reporters Cover Violence In Their Own Newsroom

Within about 45 minutes of the shooting at its offices, the paper managed to post news about it on its website, CapitalGazette.com, using a Baltimore Sun story.

The Capital Gazette company runs a chain of newspapers including Annapolis' daily, The Capital, and the Maryland Gazette. The two papers publish under a joint website called the Capital Gazette. It is one of the oldest publishers in the country, with roots going back to the Maryland Gazette in 1727. The editorial staff includes 31 people, according to The Washington Post.

Bloomberg Government reporter Madi Alexander started a GoFundMe page to help the shooting victims. The fund had received about $123,000 in donations by 12:30 p.m. Friday.

"Journalists at the paper are reporting on the deaths of their own colleagues. Please give what you can to help the Capital Gazette newsroom and their journalists," Alexander wrote. "Our hearts break for our colleagues in Annapolis and we want to do whatever we possibly can to help them pay for medical bills, funeral costs, newsroom repairs, and any other unforeseen expenses that might arise as a result of this terrible shooting.

There are 30 tenants — including accountants, lawyers and medical providers — in the building where the newspaper is housed, including five others on the first floor with the Capital.

Includes reporting by Patch editors Todd Richissin, Elizabeth Janney, Feroze Dhanoa and Dan Hampton.

— GoFundMe is a Patch business partner.

PHOTOS: Accused gunman Jarrod Ramos, courtesy of Anne Arundel County Police