Accused Capital Gazette shooter had sued paper, held grudge

The man accused of killing five people at a Maryland newspaper had an ongoing grudge with the publication and brought smoke grenades and a shotgun in a "targeted" attack meant to kill people, police said Thursday night.

Police did not officially release the name of the man they took into custody following the shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis. But a law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to discuss the case publicly identified the suspect as Jarrod Ramos, 38, of Laurel, Maryland.

"He had some type of conflict with the paper in general," said Lt. Ryan Frashure, an Anne Arundel County Police spokesman.

Court papers show that Ramos had filed a defamation suit against the newspaper in 2012. But a judge threw out the lawsuit and said Ramos "fails to come close to alleging a case of defamation." A Maryland appeals court further concluded that everything printed in the July 31, 2011 newspaper story about Ramos appeared to be true.

According to the court case, Ramos had pleaded guilty on July 26, 2011 in Anne Arundel County on a charge of criminal harassment and got a 90-day suspended jail sentence. Five days later, the Capital ran a story by staff writer Eric Thomas Hartley under the headline "Jarrod wants to be your friend."

The story described a harrowing situation of a woman who was continually harassed by Ramos after he contacted her on Facebook.

"If you're on Facebook, you've probably gotten a friend request or message from an old high school classmate you didn't quite remember," Hartley wrote in the story. "For one woman, that experience turned into a yearlong nightmare."

The story said Ramos "out of the blue" had contacted her and thanked her for being the only person ever to be nice to him at Arundel High school. But the renewed friendship turned sour quickly after Ramos turned on her, the story said. The victim was not identified in the story or in court papers.

"That sparked months of emails in which Ramos alternately asked for help, called her vulgar names and told her to kill herself," according to the story, which was part of the court record filed in the case. "He emailed her company and tried to get her fired."

The woman eventually called police and Ramos, identified in court papers as a federal employee, was charged with misdemeanor harassment. Judge Jonas Legum, who called his behavior "rather bizarre," suspended the jail sentence but placed him on probation and ordered him to continue therapy.

The newspaper concluded at the time that "The case is extreme. But it provides a frightening look at the false intimacy the Internet can offer and the venom that can hide behind a computer screen."

That venom, according to police, manifested itself in Thursday's deadly attack in the Capital newsroom.

"This was a targeted attack on the Capital Gazette," said Anne Arundel County Deputy Police Chief William Krampf. "This person was prepared to shoot people. His intent was to cause harm."

A review of an account under Ramos' name where posts repeatedly reference his court case shows growing animosity toward the court system and the press. USA TODAY scraped the Twitter account tied to the name of shooting suspect Jarrod W. Ramos: @EricHartleyFrnd.

The review found approximately 880 tweets that Ramos apparently made to Hartley's Twitter feed between 2011 and today.

"Witnesses lie because they believe in street justice," one tweet said, dated Jan. 8 of this year. "So do crooked prosecutors."

"Eric Thomas Hartley knows from experience, but doesn't appreciate how bad it can get. Journalist Hell awaits," another tweet said, on Christmas Eve 2017.

The final tweet was sent at 11:37 a.m., just hours before the fatal shootings Thursday. "F---- you, leave me alone."

Police say Ramos fired a shotgun blast through the glass front door of the newspaper office and then "he looked for his victims as he walked though the lower level," Krampf, the deputy police chief, said.

After shooting five people with about 10 shotgun blasts, police say Ramos suddenly and unexplainedly stopped shooting. The suspect surrendered to police when confronted. County Executive Steve Schuh said the suspect had put his gun down and was hiding under a desk when police found him.

Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley said he was told Ramos "wasn't a very a cooperative witness when they took him into custody."

CONTRIBUTING: Elizabeth Shell and Kevin Johnson

WSBTV