Capital Gazette shooting rampage suspect barricaded newsroom door to prevent employees from eluding gunfire
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Jarrod Warren Ramos, the suspect charged in the deaths of five employees who were mowed down during the shooting rampage at the Capital Gazette newspaper, barricaded one of two entrances to the newsroom to prevent employees from eluding his gunfire, a prosecutor said Friday.
Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Wes Adams told reporters at a news conference following a bail hearing here that Ramos, 38, who was denied bail, had barricaded the back door of the newsroom while he “executed a series of attacks… hunting down and shooting innocent victims.”
“There were two entrances to the offices in which this attack occurred. The rear door was barricaded,” Adams said. “Mr. Ramos, as I told the judge, entered through the front door and worked his way through the office, where he was shooting victims. There was one victim who had attempted to escape through the back door and was shot.”
Read the charging docs here:
Ramos Docs by Talk Media News on Scribd
Anne Arundel County District Court Judge Thomas Pryal ordered Ramos held without bail on five counts of first-degree murder.
Pryal told Ramos, who appeared via video from the Jennifer Road Detention Center, “There is a certain likelihood you are a danger.”
Ramos did not speak and showed no emotion, staring into the camera and occasionally blinking.
Adams said the case would proceed to a preliminary hearing or a grand jury.
Judge Pryal denied requests from public defender William Davis, who represented Ramos, not to hold the bail hearing and to impose a gag order in the case.
Charging documents allege Ramos fired a long-arm shotgun to blast through the doors of the Capital Gazette, then opened fire on staffers. The then hid under a desk until police arrested him, the charging documents state.
Killed were Rob Hiaasen, 59, an editor and columnist; John McNamara, 56, a sports writer; Gerald Fischman, 61, the paper’s editorial page editor; Wendi Winters, 65, a community columnist and special publications editor; and Rebecca Smith, 34, a sales assistant.
TMN first reported Thursday Ramos’ long-running feud with the newspaper. He had filed a defamation lawsuit against the Capital Gazette in 2012 over a 2011 column that reported he had harassed a high school acquaintance on social media. The case was thrown out but Ramos appealed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and the Court of Appeals and lost in both courts.
In the harassment case, Ramos pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor harassment charge.
His Twitter account bio reads:
“Dear reader: I created this page to defend myself. Now I’m suing the shit out of half of AA County and making corpses of corrupt careers and corporate entities.”
The account had long been dormant, until Ramos tweeted just moments before Thursday’s shootings, addressing Maryland Court of Special Appeals Judge Charles E. Moyland Jr.:
“Fuck you, leave me alone @judgemoylanfrnd.”
This article is republished with permission from Talk Media News.
Gary Gately, a seasoned journalist, has won 15 national, regional and local awards for reporting and writing news, investigative, public service, feature, business and travel pieces. Gately’s work has been published by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun (where he worked in reporting and editing jobs for 11 years), Baltimore Examiner, the Chicago Tribune, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, Business Week, Newsweek, Arrive Magazine, The Center for Public Integrity, CBSNews.com, CNBC.com, ABCNews.com, USAToday.com, HealthDay, The Crime Report, United Press International and numerous other newspapers, websites and magazines.
His coverage has received awards from the Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association and the Society of American Travel Writers (first-place Lowell Thomas Award for best newspaper travel story/U.S.-Canada (immigrant New York).
Gately also has extensive experience editing for newspapers and websites, has taught college journalism courses in news writing, magazine writing and travel writing and is the author of Maryland: Anthem to Innovation, a book on the state’s history, industries and attractions.