Here’s What We Know About Jarrod Ramos, the Capital Gazette Shooter
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On Thursday afternoon, a man walked into the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md. armed with a shotgun and smoke grenades, reports The Washington Post. Officials have identified Jarrod Warren Ramos as the suspect in the targeted shooting that took the lives of five employees and injured others.
Ramos, a 38-year old resident of Laurel, Md., has been charged with five accounts of first-degree murder, per The Baltimore Sun ,who owns the Capital Gazette. The victims of the shooting include assistant editor and Sunday columnist Robert Hiaasen, editorial editor Gerald Fischman, writer and editor John McNamara, sales assistant Rebecca Smith, and editor and community reporter Wendi Winters. The shooting was a “targeted attack on The Capital Gazette,” according to Anne Arundel County acting police chief Bill Krampf, who spoke at a press conference on Thursday evening. Krampf said, “He [the gunman] looked for his victims as he walked through the lower level.” He went on to say, “This person was prepared today to come in, this person was prepared to shoot people. His intent was to cause harm.”
Ramos entered the newspaper office by shooting through a glass door, as Capital Gazette reporter Phil Davis revealed in a series of harrowing tweets. Anne Arundel County Police Chief Timothy Altomare told reporters that Ramos used a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun that was purchased legally one year ago. In the planned attack, he barricaded the building’s back door so no one could escape, prosecutors said on Friday. “The fellow was there to kill as many people as he could kill,” Altomare said.
The newspaper had a history with Ramos. According to Anne Arundel County Executive Steven Schuh in an interview on Friday, Ramos had a “long-standing grievance” with the Gazette and had filed lawsuits against the paper in the past. CNN reports that the conflict first arose in 2011 when the newspaper reported on a court case in which Ramos pleaded guilty to a harassment charge in the District Court of Maryland, according to court documents. The Capital Gazette’s article was titled “Jarrod wants to be your friend,” and told of how Ramos had reached out to a former female high school classmate over Facebook. The woman claimed that Ramos had harassed her by telling her to kill herself, calling her vulgar names and asking for help.