Shooting suspect ‘had a grudge against paper’

THE suspect accused of carrying out the gun attack at a US newspaper office was a stalker its journalists had exposed for harassing a former classmate online.

Jarrod Ramos, 38, tried to sue the Capital Gazette for defamation in 2011 after it published an article about him pleading guilty to criminal harassment for stalking the woman on Facebook.

On Thursday Ramos killed five Gazette employees and injured two others at its offices in Annapolis, Maryland.

Ramos had lost his lawsuit against the paper but later made a series of threats towards its journalists online.

On Twitter he said he wanted a reporter and an editor to ‘cease breathing’ and made references to other journalist shootings such as the 2015 terror attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris.

Then editor Tom Marquadt said police had investigated Ramos four years ago over the comments.

A police spokesman said Ramos, who is not co-operating with investigators, had made similar threats as recently as the day of the attack. Yesterday he appeared in court where he was charged with five counts of first degree murder.