He was not stable, says att’y in suit

Jarrod Ramos left a paper trail of mad ravings aimed at the Capital Gazette for at least six years before he allegedly stormed the newsroom Thursday slinging smoke grenades and firing a shotgun.

The 38-year-old Laurel, Md., man arrested in the massacre began an obsessive campaign against the Annapolis newspaper, starting with a defamation suit in 2012 after former columnist Eric Hartley reported on a cyberstalking case involving Ramos and his high school classmate.

William Shirley, one of the lawyers who defended the Capital Gazette from Ramos’ suit, recalled the plaintiff for his bizarre attire — a braided ponytail and a nearly foot-long goatee — and his “simmering anger.”

"He’s not a forgettable character,” Shirley told the Daily News. “I remember at one point he was talking in a motion and somehow worked in how he wanted to smash Hartley’s face into the concrete. We were concerned at the time. He was not stable.”

When Shirley learned of the Gazette shooting, he was “not at all surprised” to hear Ramos was the prime suspect in the deadly attack.

“He legitimately felt he was wronged by the paper, and he took it all the way to the highest court in Maryland,” he said.

The 2011 article that sparked Ramos’ ire was titled "Jarrod wants to be your friend," and published after he pleaded guilty to harassment.

The report recalled the months Ramos spent badgering a victim with vulgar emails and telling her to kill herself.

The online abuse lasted for months and eventually Ramos lashed out at her friends and employers, in which he demanded she be fired. He was slapped with probation instead of a jail sentence after pleading guilty.

Ramos’ twitter account was devoid of tweets from January 2016 until seconds before he allegedly opened fire through a glass door on the first floor of the newsroom.

”F—k you, leave me alone @judgemoylanfrnd,” wrote Ramos, referring to a judge who tossed his appeal.