US police had been warned about shooter
A WOMAN stalked by the gunman who shot up a newspaper office in America on Thursday had predicted that he would become the “next mass shooter” after he plagued her with abusive Facebook messages.
The unnamed bank worker spoke of her fears as Jarrod Ramos, 38, was charged yesterday with murdering five staff at the Capital Gazette office in Annapolis, Maryland.
The computer engineering graduate was arrested after Rob Hiaasen, 59, Wendi Winters, 65, Rebecca Smith, 34, Gerald Fischman, 61, and John McNamara, 56, were blasted to death with a shotgun.
Ramos had waged a six-year campaign of harassment against the paper and its journalists after they reported his previous persecution of the woman – who was a former school classmate.
Jayne Miller, an investigative reporter with a local TV station, tweeted that the victim told her she was “stalked, harassed, sued and scared away to another state”.
Ms Miller added: “Says she warned former police official years ago ‘he will be your next mass shooter’.”
Police said Ramos had executed a “co-ordinated attack” on the Gazette office, barricading an exit and striding into the paper’s newsroom armed with smoke grenades and a pumpaction shotgun, which he had bought legally, and then opening fire on staff through a glass panel.
Phil Davis, the paper’s court and crime reporter, tweeted afterwards: “A single shooter shot multiple people at my office, some of whom are dead.
“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload.”
Ramos unsuccessfully sued the Gazette after it reported the 2015 hearing in which he admitted criminal harassment of his former classmate.
He routinely harassed the paper’s journalists and police said staff had received death threats on social media before the shooting.
Tom Marquardt, a retired editorpublisher of the paper, said he called police about Ramos in 2013. “I was seriously concerned he would threaten us with physical violence,” he said.
US President Donald Trump, yesterday said: “This attack shocked the conscience of our nation and filled our hearts with grief. Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job.”