5 killed in attack on US newsroom
Shooting carried out by white adult male, says police
Annapolis, June 29: A man armed with a shotgun and smoke grenades burst into a newspaper office in the US city of Annapolis on Thursday, killing five employees in what police described as a “targeted attack.”
Officials said the shooting at the Capital Gazette was carried out by a white adult male resident of Maryland state who was being questioned in custody.
A reporter for the daily, which has roots dating back to the eighteenth century, tweeted a chilling account of how the “gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees.”
“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,” crime reporter Phil Davis said.
There were five fatalities and two superficial injuries, the acting police chief of Anne Arundel county, Bill Krampf, told journalists.
He identified the dead as four journalists — Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara and Wendi Winters — and sales assistant Rebecca Smith.
The Baltimore Sun identified the suspected shooter as Jarrod Ramos.
Washington, June 29: A white man with a longstanding grudge against a newspaper in the US city of Annapolis massacred five people, mostly journalists, as he blasted his way through its newsroom with a shotgun and smoke grenades in what police say was a “targeted attack.”
The shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, nearly 50 km from Washington, that also injured three others, was the deadliest day for US journalism since 9/ 11 terror attacks.
The shooter identified as Jarrod Warren Ramos, 38, was on Friday charged with five counts of first- degree murder.
Ramos had previously filed a defamation suit against the newspaper in 2012, court records show.
“This was a targeted attack on the Capital Gazette. This person was prepared today to come in. He was prepared to shoot people. His intent was to cause harm,” Anne Arundel County deputy police chief William Krampf said at a news conference.
The five persons killed in the latest gun rampage are assistant editor Rob Hiaasen, editorial page editor Gerald Fischman, editor and reporter John McNamara, special publications editor Wendi Winters and sales assistant Rebecca Smith, police said.
According to media reports, Ramos lost a defamation case he had brought against the newspaper over a 2011 column he contended defamed him.
The column provided an account of Ramos’ guilty plea to criminal harassment of a woman over social media, the reports said. A few hours before the shooting, a profane tweet was posted to a Twitter account under Ramos’ name, specifically calling out the author of the appeals court opinion.