Newsroom carnage
Man who fired at newspaper office accused of killing five employees
Police responding to a shooting in Annapolis, Maryland. At least five people were killed when a gunman identified as Jarrod Ramos (inset) opened fire inside the offices of the ‘Capital Gazette’, a newspaper published in Annapolis, a historic city an hour east of Washington.
ANNAPOLIS: First-degree murder charges were filed against a man who police said targeted Maryland’s capital newspaper, shooting his way into the newsroom and killing four journalists and a staffer before officers swiftly arrested him.
Jarrod Warren Ramos was interrogated, charged and jailed pending a 10.30am hearing in Annapolis.
No defence attorney was listed in online court records, but one note suggests he could be represented by a public defender.
Another describes him as “recalcitrant”.
Investigators said earlier that he was uncooperative.
Thursday’s attack on The Capital Gazette in Annapolis came amid months of verbal and online attacks on the “fake news media” from politicians and others from President Donald Trump on down.
It prompted New York City police to immediately tighten security at news organisations in the nation’s media capital.
Police described Ramos as a white man in his late 30s who lives in Maryland.
Acting Police Chief William Krampf of Anne Arundel County said the gunman “looked for his victims”.
“This person was prepared today to come in, this person was prepared to shoot people,” Krampf said.
Journalists crawled under desks and sought other hiding places as he moved about the news room, describing agonising minutes of terror as they heard the gunman’s footsteps and the repeated blasts of the shotgun.
Police said he also was armed with smoke grenades.
Those killed included Rob Hiaasen, 59, the paper’s assistant managing editor and brother of novelist Carl Hiaasen.
Carl said he was “devastated and heartsick” at losing his brother, “one of the most gentle and funny people I’ve ever known”.
Also slain were editorial page editor Gerald Fischman, features reporter Wendi Winters, reporter John McNamara and sales assistant Rebecca Smith.
The newspaper said two other employees had non-life threatening injuries and were later released from a hospital.
Phil Davis, a courts and crime reporter for the paper, tweeted that the gunman shot out the glass door to the office and fired into the newsroom, sending people scrambling under desks.
“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,” he wrote in a tweet.
“In a later interview appearing on the paper’s online site, Davis likened the newspaper office to a “war zone”.
“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 traumatising it is to be hiding under your desk, you don’t know until you’re there and you feel helpless.”
Reporter Selene San Felice told CNN she was at her desk but ran after hearing shots, only to find a back door locked.
She then watched as a colleague was shot, adding she didn’t glimpse the gunman.
“I heard footsteps a couple of times,” she said.
“I was breathing really loud and was trying not to, but I couldn’t be quiet.” — AP