March honors victims of Maryland newsroom attack
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Quietly clutching candles or hoisting # AnnapolisStrong signs, more than 1,000 people streamed through Maryland’s capital, remembering five people slain in a newspaper office not just as gatekeepers of the news but as a crucial piece of their tight- knit community.
Friends, former co- workers and people who felt connected to the victims took part in a strikingly silent candlelit march Friday night to honor the employees of the Capital Gazette newspaper who were killed a day earlier.
Melissa Wilson, who came to the vigil with her husband, Benjamin, and their two children, said manyAnnapolis residents have “one degree of separation” fromat least one victim.
“The people whomade our newspaper are people we felt we knew, even if we had never met them before,” BenjaminWilson said.
Melissa Wilson’s employer has offices in the same building as the newspaper, and her co- workers were there when a gunman methodically blasted his way through the newsroom with a 12- gauge pump- action shotgun.
Jarrod W. Ramos has been charged with five counts of first- degreemurder. Authorities say he has a longtime grudge against the paper, suing it in 2012 after it ran an article about him pleading guilty to harassing a woman. He also sent a barrage of menacing tweets that led to an investigation five years ago.
A detective concluded he was no threat, and the paper didn’t want to press charges for fear of “putting a stick in a beehive.”
President Donald Trump said Friday at the White House that “journalists, like all Americans, should be free fromthe fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs.” Trump routinely calls the reporters who cover him “fake news” and “liars” and labels them “enemies of the people.”