The gunman who shot dead five people and injured two others in Maryland’s Capital Gazette newsroom had a long-running grudge against the newspaper after they exposed him for Facebook stalking a woman.
Jarrod W. Ramos, 38, was armed with a shotgun and smoke grenades when he launched the attack on the journalists in their newsroom in Annapolis on Thursday afternoon.
He was arrested shortly after police stormed the building. Ramos, who lives in Laurel, Maryland, had refused to identify himself to authorities in the aftermath of the shooting.
A law enforcement official said he had to be identified using facial recognition technology after purposely damaging his fingerprints in what investigators believe was an attempt to prevent them from quickly identifying him. Acting police chief William Krampf later denied this.
There is no known motive at this stage but police said it was a ‘targeted attack’ on the Capital Gazette and that he entered the building ‘looking for his victims’.
The five victims were named by police as Wendi Winters, 65, Rebecca Smith, 34, Robert Hiaasen, 59, Gerald Fischman, 61, and John McNamara, 56.
Winters was the special publications editor, McNamara was a writer, Fischman was editorial page editor, Smith was a sales assistant and Hiaasen was an assistant editor and columnist.
Police said the newspaper had received threats on social media prior to the deadly shooting. Investigators said they were trying to determine if the threats were linked to the suspect.
Ramos had unsuccessfully sued the newspaper and one of its former reporters in 2013 for defamation. A Twitter profile under his name includes frequent tweets about the newspaper and its staff.