WASHINGTON — A Laurel, Maryland, man who had a long-running dispute with the Capital Gazette has been ordered held without bond on five counts of first-degree murder in the deadly shooting Thursday at the Annapolis newspaper.
Jarrod W. Ramos, 38, had his first court appearance in Anne Arundel District Court Friday. He appeared by video from the county detention center and was told he is charged with five counts of first-degree murder and could face life in prison.
In arguing that Ramos be held until trial, Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Wes Adams told Judge Thomas Pryal that the rear door to the Capital Gazette building had been barricaded before Ramos shot through the front door and began “hunting and killing” employees working on the first floor.
“One victim who attempted to escape through the back door was shot, at that point,” Adams told reporters, outside the courthouse.
Pryal told Ramos that given the seriousness of the charges, and the possibility of life in prison, he posed a flight risk.
“There’s also a likelihood you pose a danger to another person and the community,” Pryal said.
Ramos said nothing during the hearing, and was represented by District Public Defender William Davis.
Court documents say there is security video of the events. They say that Ramos hid under a desk after allegedly shooting the five people until the police found him.
In a brief news conference Friday morning, Anne Arundel County police said Ramos would be in court on murder charges. Lt. Ryan Frashure said the suspect was “not very cooperative.”
In a news conference Thursday night, acting Anne Arundel County Police Chief William Krampf called the shooting “a targeted attack on the Capital Gazette,” but did not say whether the man was targeting specific people.
Krampf said the gunman “looked for his victims as he walked through the lower level” and set off smoke grenades in the building. Two people suffered minor injuries in the shooting.
Ramos’ apartment building was searched in the overnight hours of Thursday into Friday.
At about 9 a.m. Friday, Gov. Larry Hogan ordered all Maryland flags lowered to half-staff.
According to court records, in 2012, Ramos filed a defamation lawsuit in Prince George’s County against the Capital Gazette, a reporter and editor over a July 2011 article about Ramos entering a guilty plea to a harassment charge.
The lawsuit was thrown out, but Ramos appealed the case to Maryland’s Court of Special Appeals, and Court of Appeals. In each case, the courts ruled against Ramos.
Tom Marquardt, a retired publisher and top editor at the paper who was named as a defendant in Ramos’ lawsuit, told The Capital Gazette on Thursday that he had long been concerned about Ramos’ history of escalating social media attacks against the newspaper and its journalists.
He called police about Ramos in 2013 and considered filing a restraining order against him.
“I was seriously concerned he would threaten us with physical violence,” Marquardt said. “I even told my wife, ‘We have to be concerned. This guy could really hurt us.’”
In the Court of Special Appeals, Moylan wrote about Ramos, “He is aggrieved because the story was sympathetic toward the harassment victim and was not equally understanding of the harassment perpetrator. The appellant wanted equal coverage of his side of the story. He wanted a chance to put the victim in a bad light, in order to justify and explain why he did what he did. That, however, is not the function of defamation law.”
Overnight, a Twitter account with Ramos’ name on it had been suspended.
By Friday, friends and co-workers of the five victims — Rob Hiaasen, Rebecca Smith, Gerald Fischman, John McNamara and Wendi Winters — were describing their devotion to journalism.
According to the Baltimore Sun, which owns the Capital Gazette, a GoFundMe page has been established to attempt to raise $70,000 to assist the Capital Gazette newsroom and its journalists.
The Associated Press and WTOP’s Teta Alim and Jack Moore contributed to this report.
