Vigil honours victims of newsroom attack
More than 1,000 people pay tribute to the 5 who fell to gunman’s bullets in Maryland
Quietly clutching candles or hoisting #Annapolis Strong 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 on Friday night to honour the employees of The Capital newspaper who were killed a day earlier in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in US history.
Melissa Wilson, who came to the vigil with her husband, Benjamin, their 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son, said many Annapolis residents have “one degree of separation” from at least one victim.
“The people who made our newspaper are people we felt we knew, even if we had never met them before,” Benjamin Wilson 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 firstdegree murder. 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.”
In the attack, police said Ramos barricaded the rear exit of the office to prevent anyone from escaping, gunning down one victim trying to slip out the back.
His public defenders had no comment after he was denied bail in a brief court appearance. He was placed on suicide watch.