FIVE DEAD IN MARYLAND SHOOTING.
Five shot dead in attack on U.S. newspaper
ANNAPOLIS, MD. •Agunman opened fire at a newspaper office in Annapolis on Thursday, killing five people and gravely wounding a number of others before being taken into custody in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history, police and witnesses said.
NBC News reported Thursday night that the attacker was Jarrod Ramos, 38, of nearby Laurel, who had unsuccessfully sued the newspaper for defamation in 2012. This report was not officially confirmed.
As the violence unfolded at The Capital Gazette, journalists hiding under their desks tweeted as the lone gunman sprayed the newsroom with gunfire.
Phil Davis, a reporter who covers courts and crime for the paper, tweeted that the gunman shot out the glass door to the office and fired into the newsroom, sending people scrambling for cover under desks.
“A single shooter shot multiple people at my office, some of whom are dead,” he wrote.
Davis added: “There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload.”
Police said the suspect was being interrogated.
The gunman was believed to have used a shotgun, according to a U.S. official who was briefed on the investigation but not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said the gunman was not co-operating with investigators.
A police official said the shooter had mutilated his fingers in a possible effort to thwart identification.
Anne Arundel County Acting Police Chief William Krampf confirmed five deaths and said several others were gravely hurt.
The Baltimore Sun, which owns the paper, reported that police said officers had recovered what looked like an “explosive device,” and had “tactically secured” the building. About 170 people were inside at the time of the shooting, police said.
The FBI was also on scene assisting local authorities.
The New York Police Department immediately deployed counterterrorism teams to news organizations around the city in a move police said was done as a precaution. Police could be seen outside The New York Times, ABC News and Fox News early in the evening.
“We’re deploying units from our Critical Response Command to news outlets throughout New York City,” said Officer Andrew Lava, an NYPD spokesman.
“There is no active threat at this time,” he said.
The shooting unfolded at around 3 p.m. Police spokesman Lt. Ryan Frashure said officers raced to the scene, arriving in 60 seconds, and engaged the shooter. He surrendered without shots being exchanged.
People were seen walking out from offices with their hands raised above their heads as police cleared the area. At least two patients were taken to a nearby hospital; their condition was not immediately released.
In an interview with The Capital Gazette’s online site, Davis said it “was like a war zone” inside the newspaper’s offices — a situation that would be “hard to describe for a while.”
“I’m a police reporter. I write about this stuff — not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death — all the time,” he said. “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.”
Davis told the paper he and others were still hiding under their desks when the shooter stopped firing.
“I don’t know why. I don’t know why he stopped,” he said.
Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos said he was joking when he told two reporters that he couldn’t wait “for the vigilante squads to start gunning down journalists on sight.”
He said Thursday that he texted that comment to reporters at the New York Observer and The Daily Beast essentially as a way to get them off his back, and that they were responsible for taking his comments seriously and spreading it.
In a Facebook post, he expressed no sympathy to journalists involved in Thursday’s shooting.
Rather, he described journalists who spread his comment about vigilante squads as “vermin.”
President Donald Trump said his “thoughts and prayers” were with the victims and their families.
A SINGLE SHOOTER SHOT MULTIPLE PEOPLE AT MY OFFICE, SOME OF WHOM ARE DEAD.