Update: 4:03
Multiple people shot at Annapolis building housing Capital Gazette
ANNAPOLIS, Md. —
A gunman killed five employees of The Capital Gazette and injured others in a “targeted attack” at the newspaper’s offices in Annapolis, Anne Arundel County authorities said.
- Five people killed: Wendi Winters, Rebecca Smith, Robert Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman and John McNamara
- Several injured in Annapolis office building shooting
- Building houses The Capital Gazette, among other offices
- NBC News identifies suspect as Jarrod Ramos, 38, of Laurel
- Phone line for family, friends seeking information: 410-768-5522
Anne Arundel County police spokesman Marc Limansky said police received a call for an active shooter shortly after 2:30 p.m. Thursday at 888 Bestgate Road.
THE SUSPECT ‘LOOKED FOR VICTIMS’
Anne Arundel County Deputy Police Chief William Krampf identified the suspect only as a Maryland man in his late 30s who was armed with a shotgun.
NBC News has identified the shooting suspect as Jarrod Ramos, 38, of Laurel, according to three senior law enforcement officials briefed on the matter.
“This was a targeted attack on the Capital Gazette,” Krampf said. “This person was prepared today to come in. This person was prepared to shoot people. His intent was to cause harm.”
Police said the suspect set off canisters of smoke grenades before opening fire. Krampf said the suspect “looked for victims as he walked through the lower level.”
“This individual had some type of vendetta against The Capital newspaper and they were specifically targeted,” Anne Arundel County police Lt. Ryan Frashure said.
Online court records show the suspect filed a defamation lawsuit against a former reporter and the newspaper in 2012.
Officials are working to determine the motive in Thursday’s shooting and whether Ramos had any recent interaction with the business.
Hours after the shooting, police were in Laurel outside an apartment building believed to be connected to Ramos.
A woman who said she was stalked by the suspect told the 11 News I-Team that she warned a former police official years ago that the suspect “will be your next mass shooter.” She added, “He’s a f—— nut job.”
THE VICTIMS
Phil Davis, a Capital Gazette reporter, tweeted that the gunman shot out the glass door to the office and fired into the newsroom: “A single shooter shot multiple people at my office, some of whom are dead … There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload.”
“Something like this might happen in Afghanistan or Iraq or something like that, but you don’t expect it to happen in a sleepy office across the street from the local mall, but we’re still putting out a newspaper,” said Capital Gazette reporter Pat Furgurson, who wasn’t inside at the time of the shooting.
Krampf identified the five victims who were killed in the shooting as Capital Gazette employees Wendi Winters, Rebecca Smith, Robert Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman and John McNamara.
At least one injured person was flown to Shock Trauma in Baltimore, according to Maryland State Police and a hospital representative. Two people were being treated at the Anne Arundel Medical Center for injuries that were not gunshot wounds. Frashure told 11 News late Thursday evening that one of those injured was released from AAMC, and that both victims taken to AAMC suffered injuries described as possibly from broken glass.
The Anne Arundel Medical Center’s Annapolis campus was on…