Photo: AP / Jose Luis Magana
A man opened fire in the office of the local newspaper Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, on Thursday, killing at least five people in the attack and injuring several more, according to Reuters.
Law enforcement responded within minutes to the attack after receiving a 911 call about a shooting in progress at the newspaper office and were able to apprehend the suspect who was hiding under a desk.
Police said his weapon was on the ground when he was found and was "not in his immediate proximity," according to Steve Schuh, Anne Arundel county executive.
Police said they also recovered what they believed was an explosive device called flashbangs.
Police later identified the suspect using facial recognition software since he deliberately damaged his fingertips in order to avoid detection and was initially refusing to cooperate with investigators.
He was later identified Jarrod Warren Ramos, 39, who was the subject of a Capital Gazette article which detailed how he sent threatening and abusive messages to a woman from his high school after finding her on Facebook for several months and how she believes was the reason she was mysteriously fired from her job.
Police also said the suspect sent threats to the Capital Gazette on social media.
Deputy Chief William Krampf said, "We speak with these men and women on a daily basis. We're here. We're invested. We're going to get this investigation right."
Phil Davis, a Capital Gazette crime reporter, said the newsroom looked "like a war zone" in an interview with the Baltimore Sun, where he described hiding with other employees of the paper when the shooter stopped firing.
Davis said he didn't know why the shooter stopped, “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.”
The Twitter account for the shooter had hundreds of tweets about his defamation lawsuit but also several which included threats to the paper and allusions to other attacks on journalists, including two Virginia television journalists who were murdered on-air.
The Los Angeles Times spoke to the newspaper's editor and publisher until 2012 Tom Marquardt who said Ramos "waged a one-person attack on anything he could muster in court against The Capital."
Marquardt also said he and other editors were concerned about the real threat posed by Ramos and that they were afraid of Ramos but they often felt powerless against the harassing emails, tweets, and messages.
Anne Arundel County police said they would release the name of the victims at a later time, but the Baltimore Sun reported the Capital Gazette editor Rob Hiaasen was one of the victims killed in the attack.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation was also on the scene assisting local authorities.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan tweeted he was "absolutely devastated to learn of this tragedy in Annapolis."
Jimmy DeButts who is an editor at the paper tweeted that he was unable to speak about the shooting since he was devastated, heartbroken, and numb.
“I’m in no position to speak, just know @capgaznews reporters & editors give all they have every day. There are no 40 hour weeks, no big paydays - just a passion for telling stories from our community,” he said.
Reporter Chase Cook tweeted, “I can tell you this: We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow."
-WN.com, Maureen Foody