Maryland Shooter Kills 5 at Capital Gazette After Years-Long Vendetta
“I said during that time, ‘This guy is crazy enough to come in and blow us all away.'”
Law enforcement identified the man who shot and killed five people at Capital Gazette in Annapolis, MD, as Jarrod Ramos.
Ramos sued the publication in 2012 for defamation, but the judge tossed the case in 2015. Instead of waiting for facts, many people and the media immediately jumped to conclusions and blamed President Donald Trump’s rhetoric.
The Vendetta
The Capital Gazette reported in September 2015:
Maryland’s second-highest court last week upheld a ruling in favor of Capital-Gazette Communications, a former reporter and a former publisher accused of defamation.
Jarrod Ramos of Laurel made the defamation claim in Prince George’s County Circuit Court in 2012 after a 2011 column by then-Capital staff writer Eric Hartley about Ramos’ guilty plea to criminal harassment.
Prince George’s Circuit Court Judge Maureen M. Lamasney dismissed Ramos’ claim in 2013, saying the article was based on public records and Ramos presented no evidence it was inaccurate.
Ramos, who represented himself, appealed the decision to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, which upheld Lamasney’s ruling in an opinion filed Thursday.
“A lawyer would almost certainly have told him not to proceed with this case,” the court wrote in the opinion. “It reveals a fundamental failure to understand what defamation law is and, more particularly, what defamation law is not.”
His reported Twitter account is still up and I took some screenshots.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the profile picture is the man who wrote an article on Ramos in 2011 that identified him as a man who “was convicted of criminally harassing a woman who had turned down his advances.”
The Los Angeles Times spoke to former editor and publisher Tom Marquart:
“He waged a one-person attack on anything he could muster in court against the Capital,” Tom Marquardt, the newspaper’s editor and publisher until 2012, told the Los Angeles Times in a phone interview.
“I said during that time, ‘This guy is crazy enough to come in and blow us all away,’” Marquart said, adding that he and other newspaper officials had fretted over how to stop Ramos’ harassment.
Marquart said police couldn’t arrest Ramos for his behavior toward the newspaper, and the paper was reluctant to sue him in court. “The theory back then was, ‘Let’s not infuriate him more than I have to.… The more you agitate this guy, the worse it’s gonna get.’”
As he spoke to The Times, Marquart’s voice grew tense as he recalled his fear of Ramos, and how he’d felt powerless to do anything to stop the harassment.
Blame Game
We all know that some people and media try to blame Trump for everything and it came to no one’s surprise that many blamed Trump’s media rhetoric on the shooting. Even AFTER confirmation, some tried to tie it to Trump.
Shooting suspect Jarrod Ramos does appear to be a Trump supporter. Tweeted positively about a big Trump lawsuit against the media.
He also had sued The Capital and had a longstanding grudge against the paper. pic.twitter.com/8DyG7Lbvj5
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) June 29, 2018
Whatever the motive or triggering event, it was true before yesterday and will be true when this shooting is replaced by another: it is dangerous for Trump to vilify the media.
There was a mass shooting yesterday. Our country is dangerous enough.— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) June 29, 2018
Crickets from Republicans about Trump’s threats at the media, including referring to them as the “enemy of the people” two times in the last three weeks, after the shooting of 5 at the Capital Gazette.
— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) June 29, 2018
Editor for @reuters, @rob1cox just deleted his tweet claiming Trump had blood on his hands for this shooting. pic.twitter.com/ftNrTytWgZ
— Brandon Darby (@brandondarby) June 29, 2018
“Don’t politicize the Annapolis shooting!”
Fuck you. It was politicized the minute Trump called the press “the enemy of the people”.
— Denizcan Grimes (@MrFilmkritik) June 28, 2018
Supporting local journalism is important, what happened today is sickening. This alleged gunman appears to have had a longstanding grudge against the paper and little else is known so far. But Trump is the only president in memory to call the press “the enemy of the people.” https://t.co/QmGBikZh0L
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) June 29, 2018
Fox 5 DC has turned the Annapolis Cap Gazette shooting into Trump’s fault, and Sen. Van Hollen wants new gun rules in a state that already has very strict rules…
— Paul Bedard (@SecretsBedard) June 28, 2018
The shooting today in the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland cannot reasonably be separated from the President’s mission to villainize the press as “the enemy of the American people.”
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) June 28, 2018
This is Trump’s fault https://t.co/np37nhNmAR
— David Greenwald (@davidegreenwald) June 28, 2018
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Comments
For the Left, connecting the dots will now always end up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This is dysfunctional reasoning which passes for critical logic. It’s hopeless.
You are so right. “Ship of fools” has taken on a whole new meaning for me.
“If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,” White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina said, according to an official who attended the meeting.
Of course it was Trump’s fault. He mind melded with a sick person and caused him to do this.
The media seems to think that they are the news, not reporters of the news that they see fit to push, with their spin, and they have no problem with suppression of news that doesn’t fit their agendas. Trust in the media is low, and it’s not Trump’s fault, it is their own fault. They make claims about how unbiased they are, and “prove it” by taking a poll amongst themselves. They use “fact checkers” who use editorials and opinions and mind reading to make declarations that fit their agenda, while the truth can be seen easily enough if you pay attention to things and go to the sources, such as videos of speeches made or interviews given.
In this case, the man gave the paper fear that he would shoot them. He sued them and lost bigly, and yet it wasn’t anything but Trump who was at fault. Right. No wonder people are not believing most of the news they spew.
But never leave a crisis or tragedy go to waste… Obama’s everlasting legacy.
“Instead of waiting for facts, many people and the media immediately jumped to conclusions and blamed President Donald Trump’s rhetoric.”
Why would delusional people armed with a narrative wait for any facts? Being a leftist is so easy on the brain and just feels so good!
The shooter was well known to the paper and he was killing to make them care. It make no sense that he would damage his fingertips to avoid identification. That seems ridiculous to point of unbelievable.
Apparently the finger tip story was Fake News, imagine that!
Thanks! I would not have known that they acknowledged it was false if you hadn’t posted and it was bothering me.
Time to scrub the social media posts? Leaker busted in leak investigation??
Indulge me while I belabor what should be the bloody obvious—
and how he’d felt powerless to do anything to stop the harassment.
An American may be powerless to stop harassment … but he isn’t powerless to stop a deadly assault.
Not in most states, anyway.
In similar vein,
there is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people got shot while you’re under your desk. And then hear the gunman reload.
The obvious corollary is, … and nothing more infuriating than knowing that your trusty Charter Undercover is safely locked up … somewhere else, when you need it most … as required by your legislature.
In Maryland your Charter Undercover will stay in the house unless you make a hefty donation to the right politician’s campaign, and then maybe…..just maybe you’ll get a carry permit.
Reporters are enemies of the people, and it’s not wrong for Trump to say so. After all, as they themselves constantly remind us, truth is the perfect defense. (If only they actually stuck to the truth.) They seem to think they, and they alone, should enjoy some special immunity against anyone pointing out what they truly are. If they don’t like it they should try to improve their game; stop acting as enemies of the people, and eventually people will stop seeing them as enemies.
Perspective time.
Ramos has a beef with the paper in 2012. In 2015 and very early 2016, he makes threatening remarks toward the paper and some of its employees. The he disappears for 2&1/2 years, before he shows up and shoots up the paper, without recent warning. What is society supposed to do about this? Should have been locked up for the rest of his life to avoid committing this crime at an indeterminate future date and time? And, what about the paper and its employees? They obviously did see this man as any immediate threat. They were not armed and had no other security in place to prevent him from attacking them.
Now, the people trying to spin this incident as some indictment of President Trump or the possession of firearms KNOW this. They realize that there is no there, there. But, somehow, this has to be the fault of someone other than the lunatic who committed the act and his victims, who chose to be defenseless.
Correction: “They obviously did see this man as any immediate threat.” should read “They obviously did NOT see this man as any immediate threat.”
Sorry.
This Maryland where the populace are peasants, not citizens. It was a case of the media reaping the rewards of their own actions, being part of the system which denies the populace a fundamental constitutional right. The alternative to blaming Trump is to blame themselves.
I expect the likely outcome will be a call to further restrict legal ownership of firearms. Pure peasant mentality. Maryland is a great place to leave, as I did in 1996.
It is a shame that Maryland no longer has a death penalty.
If I worked in a paper that had been hounded and harassed by a raging lunatic like Ramos I would have sought some way to protect myself. Like maybe concealed carry?
I cannot even imagine the horror of hiding under your desk while this madman kills your collegues and then hearing him reload.
Evidently the first responders were there very fast. But as good as they were, as fast as they were, they were not fast enough for 5 people.
Could that number have been smaller if someone in that newsroom had a gun and could stop the madman in his tracks? We’ll never know. But I believe there would be fewer people dead.
As for blaming Trump? That’s just a knee-jerk reaction from a media determined to destroy itself.
Add in the twittermob roaches with the courage of those who can safely hide behind a keyboard and an avatar. At least they have the benefit of air conditioning in this heat as the air blows through their heads from ear to ear with no obstruction.
The simple fact is, if somebody wants to kill you badly enough and is willing to sacrifice his life in the process, there isn’t much you can do to stop him outside of carry a gun in your hand at all times and spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder. Nobody is going to live like that. Instead, people convince themselves that the danger isn’t real and the guy is just blowing off steam.
there isn’t much you can do to stop him
Well, actually, the time you spend hiding under your desk listening to him reload could be more productively spent tossing a bit of lead his way. If of course the state—that one which is so interested in the public safety—hasn’t made that impossible.
In Maryland, you have a better chance of winning the Power Ball lottery than you do of getting a concealed carry permit
“Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete! “
Once upon a time people who threatened violence against others were taken into custody, housed in a controlled environment, and evaluated as to their danger to themselves and others. Then something happened – Democrats demanded that they all be turned loose. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
First of all, in order to hold someone who makes a threat or may be a danger to others, you have to show that person is insane, or he has to break the law. If the person breaks a law, for threatening violence, then he only serves a limited time in incarceration. The same is true of the mentally ill. If the person shows enough improvement to function in society, then he is released. I know that people think that a Minority report type system, which results in life imprisonment because someone MAY kill someone someday, sounds like a good idea in hindsight. but, they might not view it in the same light if they were sitting in prison for life for simply making a verbal or written threat.
This man went for 2 1/2 years since his last “threat” against the paper without being arrested or committing any incidents of violence.
News reports that The Capital Gazette declined to press charges over threats Ramos made to the paper and staff.
“Maryland is for stalkers”.
Having been following sevaral MD loons and how the MD system hasn’t cared, (and been a minor target of one of them) I’m sadly not surprised.