‘We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow’
From the moment gunfire rang out at the
Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis journalists there began covering their own tragedy.
An intern at the Maryland paper tweeted at 2.43pm Thursday, local time, that there was an active shooter in the building.
‘‘Please help us,’’ Anthony Messenger wrote.
Staff members who were not in the newsroom rushed towards the building, not yet knowing that five of their colleagues had been killed. And once they got the news, they continued to seek information on what led to the deaths of their co-workers and friends.
From outside, Capital photographer Joshua McKerrow took photos of the massive police presence that enveloped the building, which also houses more than two dozen other tenants.
‘‘Police response for shooting in my newsroom,’’ he posted as a photo caption on Twitter.
And reporter Phil Davis – once he was evacuated from the newsroom – provided the most detailed account of the massacre he witnessed. His words would end up weaved into an article on his newspaper’s website, a place his name typically only appears as a byline.
Davis described the gunman shooting through the glass door of the office before opening fire on multiple employees.
‘‘There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,’’ he tweeted.
Davis is a police reporter. He said in an interview that while he writes about shootings and death ‘‘all the time,’’ it’s impossible to know how traumatising it is go through such a tragedy ‘‘until you’re there.’’
Hours after the shooting, Capital reporters promised to continue covering their story.
‘‘I can tell you this,’’ reporter Chase Cook tweeted. ‘‘We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow.’’
Those killed included Rob Hiaasen, 59, the paper’s assistant managing editor. Also slain were Gerald Fischman, editorial page editor; features reporter Wendi Winters; reporter John McNamara, and sales assistant Rebecca Smith. The newspaper said two other employees had non-life threatening injuries and were later released from a hospital.
The suspect had a long, acrimonious history with the newspaper, including a lawsuit and years of harassment of its journalists on Twitter.
A law enforcement official said the suspect was identified as Jarrod W. Ramos but he was not authorised to discuss the ongoing investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Tom Marquardt, retired publisher and top editor at the paper, said 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.’’’
Ramos filed a failed lawsuit against the paper in 2012, alleging the newspaper, a columnist and an editor defamed him in an article about his conviction in a criminal harassment case in 2011.
The shooting – which came amid months of verbal and online attacks on the ‘‘fake news media’’ from politicians and others from President Donald Trump on down – prompted New York City police to immediately tighten security at news organisations in the nation’s media capital. –