Live Updates: At Least 4 Dead in Shooting Outside Maryland’s Capital-Gazette Newspaper

annapolis-shooting-jarrod-ramos
Zach Gibson/AFP/Getty, Alex Wroblewski/Getty
Joshua Caplan

Multiple people have been shot at The Capital-Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland.

LIVE UPDATES – ALL TIMES EST…

10:40 PM — Video of that Chris Cuomo speech:

10:35 PM —

https://twitter.com/chicagotribune/status/1012524910512672768

10:29 PM — Consensus among upper-crust, establishment left-wingers: This had nothing to do with Trump, BUT…

10:27 PM — CNN political analyst Brian Karem says on air: “We’ve joined the ranks of Russia and 3rd-world nations where reporters’ lives aren’t safe.”
This talking point seems in keeping with the network’s general tone tonight. Earlier, host Chris Cuomo delivered this monologue:

The shooting, taken together with the kids stranded at the border and the political punchfest that we’re suffering, all lead us to the same problem: those kids torn from parents, dumped all over the country, the harshness of that move, the lies about fixing it, the slow fade of interest in our society about it. The empty calls for civility; why empty? Because they’re mostly made those who are decidedly uncivil. And yeah, I’m talking about the president, those around him who excuse and empower his talk, his media friends that echo and reward it, the idea of suggesting today that this shooting is to be blamed on the left is as baseless, unproductive, and frankly stupid as it is to point to the other side.

10:25 PM — Ramos’s purported feud with the newspaper started with a story on his alleged cyberstalking and harassment of a former high school classmate.

10:17 PM — More blue checkmark finger pointing.

10:16 PM — More victims identified.

https://twitter.com/LiamWBZ/status/1012521072737038341

10:13 PM — 

10:12 PM —

10:07 PM — The blue checkmark hot takes, contrary to the facts, are still rolling in:

9:58 PM — Archived thread on Ramos’s purported Twitter account.

9:57 PM —

9:36 PM — More hot takes that have aged poorly:

https://twitter.com/gabydunn/status/1012460333162586112

https://twitter.com/PopChassid/status/1012428092747415553

9:32 PM — Bio: “Pulitzer winner.”

9:30 PM — Now it appears the motivation for the shooting has little if anything to do with politics. Some blue check marks are still digging in with blame for Trump.

9:16 PM — The Capital Gazette reports on Ramos’s long-running vendetta:

On Thursday evening, federal and local law enforcement officials blocked off with crime-scene tape the Laurel apartment complex listed as the address for Ramos, whose dispute with the Capital began in July 2011 when a columnist at the paper covered a criminal harassment case against him.

In 2012, Ramos brought a defamation suit against the columnist and the paper’s former editor and publisher. In 2015, Maryland’s second-highest court upheld a ruling in favor of the Capital Gazette and a former reporter who were accused by Ramos of defamation.

9:00 PM — Multiple reports claim the identity of the attacker is Jarrod Ramos, who reportedly has had a legal feud with the Capital Gazette since 2012:

8:30 PM — 

8:15 PM — Annapolis police said in a press conference, “We have no information about facial recognition or anything about [the suspect’s] fingerprints,” and, “We have no knowledge at all that he was targeting anyone specific at the Capital.”

7:37 PM — NBC News reports the suspect has been identified through facial recognition software:

Capital Gazette parent company Tronc has released a statement on the shooting:

7:20 PM — White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted a statement condemning “the evil act of senseless violence in Annapolis”:

6:53 PM — Capital-Gazette employees say the paper will have a print edition tomorrow.

6:39 PM — Outraged White House reporters act like they’re louder than Marine One.

6:29 PM — Annapolis mayor: “Today’s tragedy will not be the new normal for our city.”

6:27 PM — Never-Trumper Cheri Jacobus responding to a message contrasting Sarah Sanders’ ejection from a Lexington restaurant and Trump “[telling] his rallies that the Press is an Enemy of the People”:

6:24 PM — He knows we don’t have all the facts yet, but…

https://twitter.com/thor_benson/status/1012461693098647552

6:24 PM — 

6:06 PM — Executive Director of the Radio Television Digital News Association:

5:58 PM —

5:55 PM — 

5:53 PM — Statement from Vice President Mike Pence.

5:50 PM —

5:46 PM — Audio of Sean Hannity’s immediate reaction to hearing the news of the Annapolis shooting. On his national radio show, Hannity brought up Rep. Maxine Waters: “I’ve been saying now for days that something horrible’s gonna happen because of the rhetoric. Really, Maxine? You want people to create — ‘Call your friends, get in their faces,’ and Obama said that, too.”

5:42  PM —

5:37 PM —

5:30 PM — The office’s door “had been blown to pieces.”

5:28 PM — Stories from two women elsewhere in the building:

5:26 PM — Reaction from Capital-Gazette editor:

5:25 PM —

5:21 PM —

5:08 PM — More Blue Check Mark blame — this time from the man who was excoriated for an insensitive joke about the terrorist attack on an Ariana Grande concert in the U.K. and flipped out on McDonald’s employees for not giving him a free refill on a drink ordered at their drive-thru.

5:06 PM — The Capital-Gazette has published its own reporting on the shooting, with more details from reporter Phil Davis, who tweeted soon after the attack:

Davis said it “was like a war zone” inside the newspaper’s offices — a situation that would be “hard to describe for a while.”

“I’m a police reporter. I write about this stuff — not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death — all the time,” he said. “But as much as I’m going to try to articulate how traumatizing it is to be hiding under your desk, you don’t know until you’re there and you feel helpless.”

Davis said he and others were still hiding under their desks when the shooter stopped firing.

“I don’t know why. I don’t know why he stopped,” he said.

Police arrived and surrounded the shooter, Davis said. He declined to elaborate.

Authorities said police responded to the scene within a minute. “If they were not there as quickly as they were it could have been a lot worse,” Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley said.

4:54 PM — Reuters editor says Trump has blood on his hands.

https://twitter.com/rob1cox/status/1012431488791597058

4:53 PM — President Trump tweets:

4:49 PM — Authorities confirm five fatalities.

4:47 PM — Local Maryland station WBAL reports at least six people were wounded in the attack.

4:46 PM —

4:39 PM — Press conference commences:

4:38 PM —

4:37 PM — 

4:33 PM — Anne Arundel Medical Center’s campus in Annapolis was placed on lockdown following the Capital Gazette shooting. “We are not allowing visitors to the hospital at this time. We ask all employees, visitors, patients, and volunteers to stay in our buildings,” a hospital spokesperson said.

4:30 PM — First info on suspect:

4:29 PM — Following the Capital-Gazette shooting, NYPD is deploying officers to New York City-based newsrooms out of “an abundance of caution,” reports Fox News’ Shepard Smith.

“We’ve been informed by the New York City Police Department that NYPD is now moving personnel out of an abundance of caution to the headquarters of all the major news media outlets in our city,” the Fox News anchor reported. “I can’t begin to count how many there are. Every major network is located here. ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC. We have eight local television stations which do local news. A multitude of others. The New York police department now mobilizing personnel out of caution to the headquarters of all major news outlets in America’s largest city.”

4:13 PM — “We don’t expect… major casualties, several hundred casualties. We do have injuries, I can confirm that.”

4:11 PM — Views of the police presence outside the paper from its parent newspaper, the Baltimore Sun:

4:09 PM — Reactions from Maryland pols:

4:07 PM — “A law enforcement source told CNN the shooting happened in the newsroom.”

4:06 PM —

3:59 PM — A shotgun was involved in the incident, according to sources for WJLA.

3:52 PM — A Capital-Gazette employee shares what he witnessed:

3:45 PM — CBS News reports at least four people were killed in the shooting.

3:31 PM — The Baltimore Sun, which owns the Annapolis newspaper, says a reporter told them of the shooting Thursday afternoon.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives says it is responding to reports of the shooting.

A spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Police Department says officers are searching the building in Annapolis where the shooting was reported.

He says the situation is “active and ongoing.” Limansky says he has no details about potential victims and he could not confirm the exact location of the building.

County Sheriff Ron Bateman told Fox News that “one suspect has been apprehended at this time.”

As a precautionary measure, law enforcement officials are searching the Baltimore Sun newsroom for any suspicious activity.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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